Peshawar: A driver of a polio team was on Friday killed and a polio worker injured when militants ambushed them in Pakistan’s troubled tribal region in the northwest ahead of a nationwide anti-polio drive, officials said. Unidentified gunmen attacked the vehicle carrying polio workers in Landi Kotal area of Khyber region near here. A security official from the area said militants had information about the polio team and they targeted the workers. “Driver Ziarat Gul was killed and a polio worker injured,” he said. Nobody took responsibility of the latest attack that came ahead of Monday’s anti-polio vaccination drive, but the Taliban attack polio teams as they see vaccination campaigns as a cover for espionage.
In a separate attack on polio workers yesterday, three polio workers along with two security escorts went missing in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province. The Taliban also allege that polio vaccination was intended by the West to cause infertility among Muslims. Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio remains endemic, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria. In 2014, Pakistan reported as many as 305 polio cases. (PTI)
