Anti-polio drive in-charge shot dead in Peshawar hospital

Anti-polio drive in-charge Zahir Shah was killed and another official was injured when gunmen stormed their office.

PESHAWAR: Anti-polio drive in-charge Zahir Shah was killed and another official was injured when unidentified men opened fire at Civil Hospital Mattani in Peshawar, Express News reported Saturday.

The injured official's identity is not known as yet.

"Two men riding a motorbike stormed the office of an immunisation officer located inside the premises of Civil Hospital Mattani and shot him dead," senior police official Ijaz Khan told AFP.

Provincial health minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Shaukat Ali confirmed the attack.

"Routine immunisation of children was going on in the hospital at the time of the attack," he stated.

The attacks come despite a recent fatwa by a prominent religious scholar, who urged parents to immunise their children against polio and other life-threatening diseases and said vaccinations were compliant with Sharia.

Gunmen have frequently attacked polio vaccination workers, accusing them of being Western spies and part of a plot to sterilise Muslims.

Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio is still endemic, but efforts to stamp out the crippling disease have been hit by repeated attacks on health teams.

A global eradication campaign has reduced polio cases by 99.9 per cent in the last three decades, but it remains endemic in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The disease is highly infectious and can cause irreversible paralysis.

Officials blame the violence and suspicions about the vaccine for a surge in cases. According to the World Health Organisation, Pakistan recorded 72 cases of polio this year compared to 58 in 2012.

New Delhi last week announced it would require citizens from Pakistan and other polio-affected nations travelling to India to take a mandatory vaccination for the disease at least six weeks prior to their departure.

Previous attacks

On December 13, two police officers and one polio worker were shot dead in separate incidents. In the first incident, two police officers providing security to a polio team were killed when unidentified men opened fire at them in Swabi. In the second incident, unidentified men on a motorcycle had opened fire on a polio team working in a village in Jamrud resulting in death of one of the polio workers.

On November 30, a police official was killed and another injured when unidentified men fired at them in Peshawar. The police officials were providing security to the Gulshan Rehman team of polio workers administering the vaccine in the area.

On November 21, 11 teachers were abducted and Khyber official Niaz Ahmed Khan had said the militants who abducted them may have mistaken them for a polio team that had just left the school after giving polio vaccinations.

They were abducted from Khyber Agency and released on November 25. A tribal elder, speaking on condition of anonymity, had said that the militants freed the teachers on condition the government stop sending polio teams to the area.

On October 10, three khasadar officials of Khyber Agency, who were providing security to polio vaccinators, sustained injuries when a roadside bomb targeted their vehicle on Ring Road near Achini in Peshawar.

On October 7, two people were killed and over a dozen – including two polio workers – were injured in a bomb blast outside a dispensary in a village on the edge of Peshawar. They were scheduled to finalise security arrangements for the ongoing polio vaccination campaign in the area.