QUETTA: A pair of gunmen riding on a motorcycle shot and killed a police officer assigned to guard a polio vaccination team in the Pishin district of Balochistan on Tuesday, authorities said.
The polio workers escaped unharmed and the two assailants fled the scene of the attack, senior police officer Ghulam Asghar said.
According to Muhammad Yasir, deputy commissioner of Pishin, the attack took place in the Trat town of Pishin. He identified the deceased as constable Muhammad Hashim and said the body was shifted to Quetta for medico-legal formalities.
The police have started a search operation in the area to arrest the attackers, Yasir said.
The attack came on the second day of a nationwide anti-polio campaign — the fifth this year — aimed at making Pakistan a polio-free state.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion fell of armed locals who often target polio teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilise children.
Since April, Pakistan has registered 20 new polio cases and the outbreak has been seen as a blow to the nation’s efforts to eradicate the disease, which can cause severe paralysis in children.
