Polio campaign under threat: Death toll from back-to-back attacks reaches 9

Wounded polio worker succumbs to injuries; Clerics announce demonstrations across the country.

PESHAWAR:

A wounded polio worker succumbed to his injuries on Thursday, raising the death toll from the back-to-back attacks on polio workers across the country to nine.

“Despite our best efforts, we could not save the life of injured polio worker Hilal Khan,” said Dr Gohar, a neurosurgeon at Lady Reading Hospital (LRH).

Khan, 22, was shot in the Sherojangai area on Wednesday while his colleague was administering polio vaccines to children. His condition was critical when he was admitted to LRH’s neurosurgery department.

“He was shot in the head at close range … While we successfully removed the bullet, he suffered from extensive brain damage,” Dr Gohar told reporters. He added that the injured polio worker was put on ventilator Wednesday afternoon, but could not survive due to excessive bleeding. He was pronounced dead at around 9:40am on Thursday.

Khan was laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard in Wahid Gary village, on the outskirts of Peshawar. A second year student, he had been associated with the vaccination campaign for the last eight months.

“My brother was very enthusiastic about the anti-polio campaign,” said Khan’s elder brother, Muhammad Jalal, while talking to The Express Tribune.

“He believed it was a national cause and urged us all to play our part in the vaccination drives.”

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti, meanwhile, announced Rs300,000 for each of deceased polio workers’ families in the province.

According to a statement issued from the CM secretariat, the K-P health department will also ask the Prime Minister’s Polio Monitoring Cell as to whether they should carry out a polio vaccination campaign scheduled to start from December 24.



Clerics announce mass protests

The All Pakistan Ulema Council, an alliance of clerics, will hold demonstrations across the country against the killings of polio eradication campaign workers, leaders said on Thursday.

Allama Tahir Ashrafi, who heads the All Pakistan Ulema Council, said that 24,000 mosques associated with his organisation would preach against the killings of health workers during Friday prayers.

“Neither Pakistani customs nor Islam allow or endorse this. Far from doing something wrong, these girls are martyrs for Islam because they were doing a service to humanity and Islam,” he said.

“The killers of these girls are not worthy of being called Muslims or human beings,” said Maulana Asadullah Farooq, of the Jamia Manzur Islamia, one of the biggest madrassas (religious schools) in Lahore.

“We have held special prayers for the martyrs at our mosque and will hold more prayers after Friday prayers. We also ask other mosques to come forward and pray for the souls of these brave martyrs.”

Polio workers spooked

Meanwhile, police arrested five men in Multan following an aerial firing incident near polio workers in the city. The incident spread panic among the workers, who feared they were being targeted in an attack similar to those carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Initial investigations, however, revealed the incident was a misunderstanding. While the five men were later released, an FIR was lodged against them for using firearms without a licence and spreading terror in the area. (WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM REUTERS AND OUR CORRESPONDENT IN MULTAN)

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