Recently dozens of heavily armed gunmen descended on a major grid station outside Peshawar in Pakistan, killing at least seven people and destroying equipment. Parts of Peshawar went dark as a result.

That no lessons have been learnt from previous such assaults is underscored by the fact that this was the third attack on the grid station which is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s biggest. The handful of security personnel at the facility were obviously no match for the horde of heavily armed militants.

Equally disturbing was the lack of a timely response from army units and rapid reaction teams of the police and Frontier Constabulary. They were not dispatched to defend the vital facility when it came under attack.

The Interior Ministry had already warned of terrorist attacks in the run-up to the elections. It specifically pointed out that government installations in Peshawar could be targeted by the militants.