Tariq Saeed Peshawar
Polio teams continue to come under terrorists’ attack as in a fresh incident a senior doctor, a Polio coordinator, was martyred while a police man sustained serious injuries in Bajaur tribal district.
Reports reaching here said the district Polio Coordinator Dr. Abdur Rehman’s vehicle was ambushed by the unknown terrorists in Mamond tehsil of Bajaur leaving him and a Police man seriously wounded.
The law enforcers shifted the victims to a local hospital in Bajaur for treatment where the medics declared the doctor as unstable. Upon learning about the incident and critical condition of Dr. Abdur Rehman, Governor KP Ghulam Ali called the Deputy Commissioner Bajaur who apprised him that the patient needs to be airlifted to Peshawar.
The Governor instructed the Chief Secretary KP to arrange the helicopter who requested the Corps Headquarters Peshawar for the heli. Dr Abdur Rehman was immediately airlifted to Peshawar along with two doctors and was shifted to CMH Peshawar but he lost battle for life in the hospital.
The Governor has strongly condemned the gory incident and sympathized with the family of the slain doctor who laid his life in the line of duty.
In the meanwhile the security forces kicked of extensive operation in the region to hunt the culprits involved in the attack on the Polio team yet they remained at large.
Five Cops, it may be recalled, were martyred and around two dozen others received critical wounds when an Improvised Explosives Device (IED) blasted a Police van in Bajaur tribal district on January 8. The Policemen were going to provide security to the Polio vaccination team. Likewise unknown terrorists launched another assault on the security forces providing cover to the Polio vaccination team leaving at least two cops martyred and equal number of others seriously wounded this time in Bannu district of Khyber the very next day.
It may be recalled that the Polio teams administering Polio drops, mostly comprising the female health volunteers as well as the security personals providing security to them, have been under terrorist’s attacks for the last many years in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Dozens of polio workers, mostly female, were killed and many others sustained serious injuries and scores of Policemen martyred in the assaults against the Polio workers which had not only sent a wave of terror, anxiety and harassment among the Polio staff in the country but had also attracted serious concern of the international community.
