Security officer guarding polio team shot dead in Balochistan

• Unidentified assailants kill constabulary officer in Surab.
• Officers were returning from polio duty.
• One attacker killed in retaliatory fire.

A Balochistan Constabulary officer, deployed for the protection of an anti-polio vaccination team, was shot dead in Balochistan's Surab district, Levies officials confirmed on Thursday.

In a statement, the Levies authorities said that the constabulary personnel were travelling from Kalat to Khuzdar after completing their duties for the anti-polio campaign when unidentified assailants opened fire.

The officials said that the officers retaliated, resulting in the killing of one attacker during the exchange of fire.

Law enforcement personnel later cordoned off the area and launched a search operation to trace other suspects involved in the attack.

Pakistan is one of two countries, along with Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic. Hundreds of security personnel and health workers were killed by miscreants over the past decade.

This was the third security officer who was gunned down during the ongoing nationwide anti-polio campaign targeting 45 million children across the country.

Previously, a Levies personnel and a policeman were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Swat and Nowshera on October 14 and 15, respectively.

Pakistan recorded a surge in polio cases last year, with 74 infections reported, compared to just six in 2023. So far this year, 29 polio cases have been recorded, with KP accounting for 18 cases, the highest in the country.

Sindh reported nine cases, while one each was reported in Punjab and Gilgit Baltistan.

Polio, a highly infectious virus mainly affecting children under five, can result in lifelong paralysis but is easily prevented by the oral administration of a few drops of a vaccine.

Polio teams have regularly been targeted by unknown assailants in rural areas amid a raft of misinformation circulating about the vaccine.

The week-long nationwide immunisation campaign aims to vaccinate children under the age of five across 159 districts. While the campaign will run through October 19 nationwide, polio workers will conduct the drive from October 20 to 23 in southern KP.