Warning shots: Polio vaccinator shot dead in Khyber Agency

Women and children ordered to leave immunisation programme office.

JAMRUD:

Two masked men shot dead an anti-polio vaccination campaign supervisor on Saturday morning after storming into his office in the Ghundai area of Khyber Agency’s Jamrud tehsil.

An official of the political administration, Asmatullah Wazir, said that the supervisor Ghilaf Khan, a resident of Bara, Khyber Agency was working in his office at the Expanded Programme of Immunisation (EPI) in Ghundai.

The official added that children and women who had come to the office for immunisation against hepatitis and polio were sitting inside for drops.

The attackers parked their two-wheelers and then barged into the office. They ordered the women and children present for immunisation of different diseases were told to leave the office. “The women and children ran away,” Wazir explained.



The official added that one of the militants opened fire at the supervisor and then managed to escape, after which residents of the area rushed the injured to the Jamrud Civil Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

Wazir also added that militants left behind a note written on a piece of paper, which threatened polio workers of the same fate which the supervisor met. “Those who follow foreigners will meet the same fate,” the note read.

A search operation was launched in the area while all exit and entry routes were blocked by Khasadar officials.

The attacks come despite a recent fatwa by a prominent leader and head of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Maulana Samiul Haq who urged parents to immunise their children against polio and other life-threatening diseases and said vaccinations were compliant with Sharia.

Last year the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan banned polio vaccinations in the tribal region of Waziristan, alleging the campaign was a cover for espionage. Eradication efforts have also suffered due to long-standing rumours that the vaccine was part of a Western plot to sterilise the faithful.

(With additiona imput from news wires)

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2013.