ISLAMABAD - Terrorists linked with Daesh Afghanistan chapter yesterday attacked ARY News Islamabad bureau office with hand grenades and also fired gunshots, injuring a non-linear editor, the ARY management said.
Unidentified assailants riding a motorbike lobbed crackers on ARY News office and fired two shots. Security guards present at the office entrance retaliated swiftly, forcing the attackers to flee away dropping pamphlets.
Afghanistan chapter of the global terror outfit Daesh, also known as ISIS, claimed responsibility for the attack in the pamphlets ‘in reaction to the channels coverage of ongoing operation Zarb-e-Azb’.
Two unknown persons reached at the ARY office in F-7 Sector on a number-less Honda-125 motorcycle at around 6:20pm and lobbed two grenades over the office gate. The veiled attackers also fired gun shots but they did not hit anyone. However, grenade caused injuries to an ARY employee. The attackers then fled the scene as an office security guard retaliated with a couple of gunshots.
According to the security guard, the attackers also threw pamphlets at the scene inscribed with slogans against the Zarb-e-Azab operation being conducted by Pak Army in restive areas of the country. An ARY official Umar Hayat got head injuries in the grenade attack and was shifted to the Polyclinic hospital for treatment.
Soon after the incident, PTI leadership including Imran Khan, Shah Mahmood Qureshi and Jehangir Tareen visited the ARY office to express solidarity with the media workers. Islamabad Police IG Khalid Khattack also visited the scene and directed his officials to conduct a thorough inquiry into the incident. Islamabad police beefed up security at the media houses in the city after the attack.