PESHAWAR:The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Monday kicked off a three-day anti-polio drive which was going smoothly through out the province but all of a sudden some unscrupulous elements launched a malicious campaign against the vaccine, instigating the sentiments of the locals through fake videos to lure support against the drive.
During the campaign thousands of polio workers were supposed to visit schools and madrassas to administer the oral polio vaccine to children between five to 10 years of age. But it took an interesting turn when some children of a private school in Peshawar's Madina Colony were brought to the Maulvi Jee Hospital on the GT Road with complaints of diarrhea, nausea and headache.
The news spread like wildfire in Peshawar and panicked parents started rushing their children to hospitals. Even the violent protesters set on fire a Basic Health Unit (BHU) in the Mashokhel village.
But all this was later proved farce as Babar Bin Atta, Focal Person to PM Imran Khan on Polio Eradication, shared the videos about the incident. In one video, a person is asking the children, apparently in sound health, sitting in a pick-up that they should act as if they are ill and that they are being shifted to the hospital.
In another video, shared by the same official on social media, a person can be seen wailing that if they don’t get their children vaccinated police arrest them and if they do, they fall ill. And in the same vein, the man instructs the boys dressed in school uniform to lie on the hospital bed and pretend to be unconscious. The kids, then, acted promptly as per the instructions given by the person.
The main suspect, instructing the children in the video, was later identified and apprehended by the law enforcers as the fake and failed attempt to malign the campaign came to an end as a result of quick response from the government.
Babar Atta released another video in which the prime suspect, Nazar Mohammad, was telling the policemen about the incident. The police was on a hunt to nab other persons involved in the conspiracy.