Gunmen fire on polio team and abduct four workers in KP’s Tank as national vaccination drive begins

Two more team members were taken and later freed in South Waziristan, where sources blame the terrorist group TTP

2 November 20261 min read

A polio worker with a child held by a woman beside a tent, with a blue vaccine box on the ground — A polio worker with a child during a vaccination campaign in rural Pakistan in January 2015. File photo. — CDC GLOBAL/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (CC BY 2.0)

Listen to this articleGunmen fire on polio team and abduct four workers in KP’s Tank as national vaccination drive begins2 min · device voice0:00 / 1:44

PESHAWAR (The Thursday Times) — Unidentified armed men opened fire on a polio vaccination team and abducted four workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank district, police said, as a week-long national drive to vaccinate about 24 million children got under way.

The attack happened in a village in the Sheikh Attar union council. Police said the gunmen took the four workers to an undisclosed location. There was no immediate word on who was behind it or where the workers were being held.

In a separate incident, armed men abducted two members of a polio team in the Azam Warsak area of Lower South Waziristan and later released them. Sources said those responsible belonged to the banned terrorist group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

The campaign runs until November 8 in 97 selected districts, with polio drops for children under five. On Sunday, the National Emergency Operations Centre confirmed a new polio case in Khyber district, a 13-month-old girl from the Bara area. Six of this year’s cases have been in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two countries where polio remains endemic. Vaccination teams and the police escorts protecting them have come under repeated attack in the province’s southern districts.