Ulema vow to make Torghar polio-free

MANSEHRA: The prayer leaders and religious scholars from a different school of thoughts at a seminar on Tuesday pledged to wage a jihad to make the erstwhile tribal belt of Torghar a polio-free district.

The ulema mostly from Torghar, Mansehra, Battagram and Kohistan participated in the seminar and pledged to fight the crippling virus. They announced to go door-to-door and convince parents to get administered polio drops to their children in Torghar where nine cases were reported recently.

“We should accept it wholeheartedly when the doctors say that there is no harm in administering anti-polio drops to the kids,” Maulana Safeeullah Khattak, prayer leader of a central mosque in Judbah, said.

Dr Shahzad Ali Khan, the district health officer, said the Health Department had launched two case responsive polio drives in Hazara to curb its further spread to elsewhere.

Syed Latif, head of resource centre, said that more such seminars would be organised in Torghar and other parts of Hazara. The former federal minister, Hanif Taib, said that out of 57 Muslim countries around the worlds, 55 had eradicated polio but unfortunately children in Pakistan and Afghanistan were still facing threats of that crippling disease.

Maulana Waseeru Rehman said that if polio drops were not useful, why the Saudi governments administered them to everyone entering the country for Haj and Umrah.

Ashar Ali, the country focal person of Rotary International, said that they would appoint male and female social mobilisers in Torghar and Mansehra to sensitise parents. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s focal person on polio, Khursheed Khan said that government was putting all its energies and resources to get rid of the crippling virus.