Kidnappers slay polio team in Zhob

Bodies found dumped in an unfrequented mountainous area of the district

QUETTA: Four days after they were kidnapped while travelling in the restive Zhob district, the bodies of a polio vaccinator, his driver and two police escorts were found dumped in an unfrequented mountainous area of the district on Tuesday.

“The bodies are three days old,” Deputy Commissioner Nazir Muhammad Kethran told The Express Tribune. “Apparently, they were shot dead the day they were seized by gunmen.” The grisly discovery came a day after two suicide bombers blew themselves up during a search operation by security forces in the Toda Kibzai area of Zhob.

“Some passersby spotted the bodies in the Gowal Ismailzai area and reported to the Balochistan Levies,” an official said. The bodies were ferried to a state-run hospital where they were identified as Abdul Hameed (vaccinator), Abdul Samad (driver) and Balochistan Levies constables Muhammad Ayub and Muhammad Naseem. They were shot at close range.

The victims were natives of Zhob and a huge crowd turned up at the hospital after hearing the news of the grisly killings. Incensed relatives and locals staged a protest as shopkeepers shut their shops to express solidarity with the bereaved families.  The deputy commissioner of Kethran said a manhunt was under way for the killers. A spokesperson for the Frontier Corps said on Monday that 250 paramilitary soldiers, aided by air power, were taking part in the operation in the Toda Kibzai and Murgha Kibzai areas.

The polio vaccinator, his driver and the two police escorts went missing on February 13 while travelling to the mountainous Toda Kibzai area to vaccinate children there. They remained incommunicado for a day, augmenting fears that they were kidnapped. Later the deputy commissioner of Kethran confirmed that they were seized by Taliban extremists. The slaying of the polio team has led to fresh fears about security in the volatile Zhob district where forces have conducted several operations since January 1.

In other violence, Baloch separatists blew up a 24-inch diameter gas pipeline near the Sui area of Dera Bugti district late Monday night.

The militants detonated an improvised explosive device underneath the pipeline in the Pashbogi area near Sui, a Levies official told The Express Tribune by phone. The explosion ripped off a portion of the pipeline, suspending supplies to the Sui plant from Pirkoh. The pipeline was sabotaged shortly after midnight but repair work could not be started despite the lapse of 17 hours, the official added. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but a banned separatist group, Baloch Republican Army, carried out similar sabotage activities in the past.


Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2015.