Polio worker kidnapped in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Unknown gunmen abducted an official associated with a polio vaccination programme from Pakistans restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday, police said.Sher Ayaz was abducted from Shewa tehsil in North Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan.A police team raided various suspected hideouts to rescue the polio worker but in vain.Three days of polio vaccination drive just concluded in the district amid tight security.

Unknown gunmen abducted an official associated with a polio vaccination programme from Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday, police said.

Sher Ayaz was abducted from Shewa tehsil in North Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan.

A police team raided various suspected hideouts to rescue the polio worker but in vain.

Three days of polio vaccination drive just concluded in the district amid tight security. Polio workers and security officials attached with them are at a high security risk due to threats by the banned militant groups affiliated with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) active in the region. The militants had issued a warning to polio workers and policemen on duty with them to stay away from the polio campaign which they believe is an un-Islamic practice. Harassment and attacks against health workers carrying out polio vaccination drives for the government is fairly common in Pakistan.

On December 20, a polio vaccination team and their police escort were attacked by a mob during a vaccination drive in a densely populated area of Karachi city in Sindh province. Last Tuesday, three security forces personnel were killed and two others injured in a blast targeting a vehicle carrying polio workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A day earlier, a polio worker and a police constable were shot dead in separate incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the country began a week-long polio eradication campaign amid tight security. Earlier, a female health worker was forcibly kept in confinement at an apartment building in Karachi's Nazimabad after she went to an apartment to carry out her duties.

Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic, with the disease mostly affecting children under five and sometimes causing lifelong paralysis. Pakistan reported 64 cases of the crippling disease this year. One of the biggest challenges faced by health workers is the misinformation about the vaccine and security issues.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)