Another polio team has been targeted in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, with unidentified gunmen abducting polio team supervisor Jalil Khan in Jamrud tehsil of Khyber district. District Police Officer Waqar Ahmad said on Wednesday that the incident took place in the Chapri area during the ongoing seven-day vaccination campaign, and that the gunmen took the supervisor to an unknown location.
According to the DPO, a large police contingent was sent to the area and roadblocks were set up on key routes to recover him.
It is the latest in a string of attacks on polio teams in recent days. A day earlier, two policemen were martyred and another was injured when a polio team was attacked in Mohmand district. Earlier this week, four polio workers were abducted after gunfire in Jious village in Tank district, while two members of a polio team abducted in Azam Warsak, Lower South Waziristan, were later released. According to sources, men linked to the banned TTP were allegedly involved in the Waziristan kidnapping.
The incidents come during a special anti-polio campaign running from November 2 to November 8 in 97 selected districts. The National Emergency Operations Centre has confirmed Pakistan's seventh polio case of the year in a 13-month-old girl from Bara tehsil, Khyber district, the district's second case this year and the sixth in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.