2 police officers injured in separate attacks on anti-polio teams in northwest Pakistan

PESHAWAR: Two Pakistani police officers were injured on Wednesday when unknown gunmen opened fire at anti-polio vaccination teams in two separate incidents in the country's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said.

The incidents took place in the Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts of the province, police said.

The gunmen ambushed the team that was administering oral polio drops to kids during a door-to-door campaign in the Shah Alam village in the Tank district bordering Afghanistan.

A police constable escorting the team was injured in the firing.

The attackers managed to flee from the scene.

Police launched a search operation in the area to arrest the culprits.

In the second incident, a police constable was injured when militants fired at polio vaccinators in the Kulachi tehsil of the Dera Ismail Khan district.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Amin Gandapur condemned the two attacks on the polio team and directed the district police to make every possible effort for the early arrest of the accused.

"Polio workers are our frontline heroes, and such cowardice acts could not deter their resolve of eliminating this crippling disease from the country," he said.

Incidents of attacks on polio teams in the province have claimed scores of lives, including those of polio workers and policemen escorting the vaccinators in the recent past.

In January, a polio immunisation programme coordinator was killed, and a policeman was injured when their vehicle was attacked in the province.

Earlier in the same month, two people were injured when a bomb planted on the roadside hit a vehicle in the Bajaur tribal district.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic, according to the World Health Organisation.