The Taliban on Thursday launched a dawn attack in the centre of the provincial capital, gunning down nine trainee policemen as they slept.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the raid in Ichhra locality of Lahore, calling it a consequence of severe torturing of their imprisoned mates in KP prisons.

The building raided was a hostel, where around 30 trainee prison officers from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were being lodged.

The killing follows an attack on an army checkpost in Wazirabad on Monday and raises fears of renewed violence in Punjab, the country’s political heartland.

Punjab Inspector General of Police Habibur Rehman said the attackers came on three motorcycles and a car, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and hand grenades. They stormed the building in the densely populated area.

A survivor told AFP from his hospital bed that staff jumped frantically onto the roof tops of neighboring houses to escape the hail of bullets.

“About 15 of us were sleeping on the roof and some were offering prayers when gunfire started downstairs. Some of my colleagues who went down to see what was happening were killed or wounded,” Mohammad Rizwan Shah, 23, said.

He said he worked in the prison in Peshawar, which houses Taliban and other militants, and came to Lahore six weeks ago for the training course due to end on July 28. “I jumped over to the house next door to save my life and fractured my arm. Others too jumped walls and into neighbouring houses,” he said.

A spokesman for the rescue service said eight other people were wounded and there had been no security outside the building, which was not an official police residential property.

Local resident Mohammad Siddiq said he saw gunmen fleeing on motorcycles and a blood-drenched body lying in the street at around 5:30am.

Beyond reach: Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP in a telephone call that the attack proved “no place is beyond our reach”.

He said five attackers targeted the policemen because Taliban inmates were tortured in prisons in the northwest and said the raid was “part of chain of attacks” that started in Gujrat district on Monday and would continue.

Police also blamed the “same gang” who killed seven security personnel at the army camp in Wazirabad.

Tensions have been high among right-wing and extremist organisations since Pakistan decided to reopen its border to NATO supply convoys last week.