Safety concerns: Police to beef up security for polio workers

Measures include end of door-to-door campaigns, patrolling in sensitive areas.

PESHAWAR:

The slaying of two polio team volunteers in Khazana and Mathra has prompted the police to provide added security to workers taking part in the immunisation drive.

“We have been told that a police constable will accompany every polio team in the area while police mobiles will also patrol the roads during the vaccination campaign,” Khazana police station SHO Asif Sharif told The Express Tribune.

“Khazana has five polio teams and it will not be difficult for us to provide them with security. In other villages, however, we have decided that instead of door-to-door campaigning, polio workers will pitch up tents where parents can take their children for vaccinations.”

Sharif said it was evident from the organised manner the killings were taking place that they were carried out by militants. “They targeted polio workers in Peshawar, Charsadda, Swat and other parts of the country at the same time. This shows the killings were coordinated and planned.”

A team of polio workers which visited the Kharasan Refugee Camp on Thursday was accompanied by police escorts. The workers were completing the required paperwork following the suspension of the vaccination campaign in the wake of coordinated attacks on volunteers. The United Nations has also withdrawn all its workers associated with the anti-polio campaign, according to spokesperson Michael Coleman. Organisations administrating polio vaccinations will do so without UN backing now.

Police officials are also considering beefing up security for workers in urban areas.

“The campaign is only carried out every 40 days for three days, and we have suggested that police constables should accompany these teams inside the city as well,” said a police official requesting anonymity. He added the decision would be implemented by the next campaign. “They (militants) want to cause panic in an organised manner. I think we can stop them if locals lend us a helping hand,” said the police official.

Meanwhile, President Asif Ali Zardari met the interior minister and condemned the attacks on polio workers. He urged concerned quarters to provide swift justice for the sake of the victims.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2012.