Polio Vaccination Team Fired At In Pakistan’s Balochistan Province

The accused managed to escape, the police said (Representational)

Karachi:

A polio vaccination team and two policemen escorting it were attacked by three unknown assailants in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, the police said. The attack occurred in Quetta’s Qambrani road area.

The vaccine workers, some of them women, and the policemen were unhurt. However, one of the attackers was injured when the policemen opened fire on them, the police said, adding that the three managed to flee.

“They were three armed men on a motorcycle. As they came near the polio vaccination team and were about to open fire, the policemen suspecting something was wrong fired first. One attacker was injured, while the two others panicked. The three managed to flee from the scene,” senior police official Rahim Khan said.

The attack came just a few days after two policemen escorting a polio vaccination team were gunned down in Quetta’s Nawan Killi area on Tuesday.

Pakistan regularly witnesses attacks on polio vaccination teams. Its polio vaccine campaign has been hit by such terrorist attacks in many parts of the country, notably in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Even in Pakistan’s biggest city, Karachi, polio vaccine workers, and the policemen escorting them have come under fire.

Many religious leaders and terror groups have accused the polio vaccine teams of working under a Western agenda and claim that polio drops make children infertile.