Policeman guarding polio team shot dead in Pakistan

QUETTA: Gunmen on Wednesday killed a policeman guarding a polio vaccination team in Pakistan’s southwest, police said, the latest blow to efforts to wipe out the crippling virus.
The two attackers on a motorbike shot the policeman in the Pashtunabad area on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas rich Baluchistan province, before fleeing, senior local police official Aitzaz Goraya said.
He said the policeman, who was guarding a four-member polio vaccination team, was shot as he came out of a mosque after saying prayers during the lunch break.
“The policeman succumbed to his wounds on his way to hospital,” he said.
The vaccination drive remained unaffected by the shooting, he added.
The city police chief Shafqat Cheema confirmed the incident and casualty.
Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio remains endemic. Attempts to eradicate it have been badly hit by opposition from militants and attacks on immunization teams that have claimed 69 lives since December 2012.
The militants claim that the polio vaccination drive is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilize Muslims.
Apart from attacks on vaccination teams, Baluchistan, Pakistan’s largest but least developed and most sparsely populated province, has been racked for decades by a separatist insurgency that was revived in 2004.
Meanwhile, unidentified gunmen shot dead five customs officials patrolling overnight in Pakistan’s restive northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province, authorities said on Wednesday.
The gunmen attacked the duty officers at around midnight in Kohat city, some 80 kilometers (49 miles) southwest of Peshawar, capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Three gunmen fired at the customs team indiscriminately. Four officials died on the spot and another succumbed to his injuries in hospital later,” Sohaib Ashraf, district police chief in Kohat, told AFP.
“We are unaware of the identity of the attackers but it’s an act of terrorism,” he said.
Another police official in the area, Iqbal Mohmand said the attackers escaped on foot under cover of darkness.
A customs department official also confirmed the incident.
“It was a terrorist attack on our team. All five members of the team were killed in this attack. They hailed from local areas of Kohat and Karak districts,” he said.
Uniformed government officials, including polio vaccination workers, are often targeted by militants who want to overthrow the government.
Customs officials, meanwhile, sometimes come under attack by criminal gangs.