Two police officers assigned to protect polio vaccination teams were shot dead in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, northwestern Pakistan. The attack came just one day after four other officers on a similar mission were abducted and remain missing.
According to police, the attackers, riding a motorcycle, opened fire on a police vehicle as the group was heading to a nearby village to guard vaccination teams. A third officer was wounded in the incident.
“Two police officers were martyred and another was injured in the attack. However, no polio workers were present in the police vehicle,” police official Ali Rehman Khan told AFP.
No group has claimed responsibility for the shooting. However, similar attacks are frequently carried out by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and other armed groups. These groups falsely believe that polio vaccination teams are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
On the social media platform X, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari called Tuesday's shooting “deeply regrettable and condemnable.”
“The police deployed to protect polio vaccination teams are performing a national duty; their sacrifices will not be forgotten,” he added.
The abduction of four police officers on Monday also took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Search efforts are ongoing.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where wild poliovirus remains endemic. Last year, Pakistan recorded 31 cases.
The surge in violence coincides with the launch on Sunday of a targeted vaccination campaign aimed at reaching nearly 24 million children in 97 high-risk districts across the country. On the same day, health authorities recorded the eighth polio case of the year, in a 13-month-old girl in Khyber district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It is the hardest-hit province with six cases, followed by Sindh with two.
Polio is highly contagious and spreads easily from person to person. In severe cases, the disease can cause lifelong complications, including paralysis.
