Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Islamabad (Urdu Point. DW Urdu. August 16, 2022) Qudratullah, a local police officer, told news agency DPA that the two policemen were killed during a door-to-door vaccination campaign in Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. According to the police, the assailants were riding a motorcycle and managed to escape from the spot.No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
On Monday, the provincial government launched a campaign to administer polio drops to more than one million children under the age of five. Pakistan remained a polio-free country for a year, but within the last few months, 14 new cases of polio have been reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Pakistan is one of the countries in the world, where polio cases are still coming up from time to time, but there has been a clear decrease in such cases.
In 2014, the number of children infected with polio was recorded as 306.
The situation in Pakistan's neighboring country Afghanistan is also similar to that of Pakistan. On the other hand, polio was recently detected in the sewage water of the United States and the United Kingdom.
Militants from jihadist organizations in Pakistan's northwestern regions often target medical officials as well as security personnel.
So far dozens of officials have been killed in such operations. Alleging that such extremist organizations say that the officials of the polio teams are spying for the government and the real purpose of the polio drops is to destroy the reproductive capacity of Muslim children.
These so-called logic and conspiracy theories of the extremists are completely wrong and baseless, but because of this, many members of the anti-polio teams in Pakistan lose their lives every year.
Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi disguised himself as a polio worker during the search for Osama bin Laden, the former head of al-Qaeda. The information provided by Dr. Shakeel Afridi to the American Intelligence Agency (CI) proved to be key in locating the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. This incident also dealt a huge blow to the polio campaign in Pakistan. According to some religious leaders, polio drops are part of the western agenda.
Efforts are also being made by the government of Pakistan and international welfare organizations to create awareness against such false assumptions.
A/R (dpa, AFP)
