TTP-Jamaat Ahrar claims responsibility for attack on polio team in Charsadda

Polio worker and student of 10th grade injured when polio teams were fired at by unidentified men

CHARSADDA: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction Jamaatul Ahrar on Monday claimed responsibility for the attack on a polio vaccination worker in the Shabqadar area of district Charsadda, where one worker was injured.

“We claim responsibility for the  attack on polio workers in Shabqadr,” TTP Jamaatul Ahrar spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan said.

“We will soon release our policy statement on polio vaccine,” Ehsan said in a statement.

“In the policy statement, we will [explain] according to Islam and science how it is dangerous to health and how it is against Islam,” he said.

Health worker injured in attack as Charsadda observes Polio Day

A polio worker and a student of tenth-grade were injured when polio teams were fired at in Sadar Ghari Shabqadar on Monday.

Narrating the incident, the polio area in-charge and eyewitness of the incident, Asif Khan, told The Express Tribune that he was checking polio teams in UC Katozai, near Sadar Ghari Afghan refugee camps Munda, when two unidentified motorcyclists opened fire on Asif and a polio worker named Sajid Khan.

Sajid sustained serious injuries, while Asif took shelter in a nearby home with a female polio worker; Gul Rukh.

Police official Murad Khan of the police station Khwaja vas told The Express Tribune that he took transferred the injured to Shabqadar hospital when he was informed of the incident. Further, he cordoned off the area for the security of polio workers, and conducted a search operation.

District health officer Dr Nawaz Khan, while talking to The Express Tribune, said it was a one-day polio campaign in district Charsadda, for which 1,521 teams (comprising 3,040 workers) and 298 area in-charges were on duty.

He said 253,254 children were to be immunised in the campaign, while more than 2,000 children had not been immunised in the district due to the refusal of their parents.

The number of polio cases reported in Pakistan are 260 so far.

Female polio workers protest against low wages in Sindh

In Sindh, at least 25 female polio workers protested against low wages in Gulberg area of Karachi, Express News reported.

The workers were paid Rs250 per month while they were promised Rs500 by the government.

Since the start of the campaign in August, the government has reportedly failed to provide adequate wages to the workers.

The total number of polio cases reported in the country has reached 260. Out of these, 54 cases were reported in K-P, 163 cases in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), 26 cases in Sindh, 14 in Balochistan and three in Punjab.