Tariq Saeed Peshawar
As Pakistan on Saturday reported the fourth poliovirus case of the current year in a 2-year-old boy from Bharkan union council in Sindh’s Shikarpur district, the Polio eradication campaign continued to suffer set back as another cop assigned the duty to provide security to the Polio vaccinator was shot dead in the outskirts of Peshawar on Tuesday.
The Policeman identified as Shah Nawaz, as the officials said, was killed by the unknown assassins in SulemanKhel area of Peshawar while he was going to perform his duty. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assault.
Police said a search and comb operation was underway to arrest the culprits who remained at large till the filing of this report.
Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly marred with violence. Militants target vaccination teams and police assigned to protect them and at least 12 police have been killed alone in the year while performing security duties for vaccination campaigns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
A five-day anti-polio campaign started Monday in nine high-risk districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Health workers are tasked with administering vaccines to some 3.28 million children under age 5. More than 26,000 police are protecting the teams. Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped.
