Attacks on polio vaccination teams: Police, EOC disagree on casualty figures in KP since 2012

PESHAWAR: There is a contradiction between the version of the police and officials of the Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) on the number of casualties of the team members in the anti-polio drives launched since 2012 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The police said a total of 22 polio workers were killed. Among them were 11 cops. Another 11 people were injured, eight of them being cops. On the contrary, an EOC official asserted that the death toll was 81 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), including the districts which have been merged with the province. The official explained that 41 including 18 polio workers and 21 cops were killed in KP during the anti-polio campaign while 40 lost their lives in the newly merged districts. He added that up to 40 polio workers sustained injuries in KP’s anti-polio drive and 66 polio team members were wounded in merged districts.

Talking to The News, Superintendent of Police (SP), Saddar Division, Abdul Salam Khalid, disagreed with these figures and said most of the polio workers were killed due to personal enmities but people related the killings to the anti-polio drive. The official said there were issues with the polio workers and most were not punctual. “Our cops reach a Basic Health Unit in time for the security of polio teams but the polio workers weren’t punctual and this causes security issues,” he argued. According to the police record, 42 attacks were made on the teams during anti-polio drives in the province since 2012. It left 22 dead and 11 injured.

Some major attacks were carried out on the vaccinators and security personnel during the anti-polio drives in KP. Six attacks were reported during an anti-polio campaign in 2012 in Peshawar, Nowshera and Charsadda districts. Four vaccinators were killed in these attacks. They included Lady Health Visitor Farzana in Mathra village near Peshawar and polio worker Hilal in Khazana village, also near Peshawar. Two polio workers, one security man among them, were injured. Eight attacks were made on the polio teams in 2013. The nine persons who were killed included five cops and two female polio workers, Sharafat and Sumbal in Badaber area of Peshawar. One cop was injured in the attack. In 2014, there were four attacks on the polio teams in which one cop, Head Constable Bakht Naseeb lost his life. Three sustained injuries including Frontier Constabulary member Akbar Hussain. The year 2015 saw five attacks on the teams, killing three persons including two cops. Two cops were injured in the anti-polio drive. There were three attacks in 2016 on the polio teams in different months of the year on the outskirts of Peshawar.

Three persons including two cops, Head Constable Saeed Khan and Constable M Nazeer and a polio worker Dr Zakaullah were killed in the attack. Three persons including two cops, Constable Naimatullah, Special Police Officer Zubair and another worker Ahsanullah were injured in 2016. In 2017 there was one attack in which polio worker Naseer Khan was wounded on March 21 in Badaber area of Peshawar. According to the record, the year 2018 was the safest as no such attack on the polio teams was reported. The year 2019 was the most dangerous for the polio workers. During the year, there were 17 attacks on the polio workers. Three cops died and two workers, including a cop, were injured in the attacks in Bannu, Buner, Chitral and Lower Dir districts.

On March 25, 2019, LHV Shazia Bibi was injured in an attack in Chitral. On April 23, 2019, a cop M Imran was killed in Bannu. Two FC men Farmanullah and Mukaram Khan were killed in an attack on December 18 the same year in Lower Dir. On April 24, SPO Zafar Ali sustained injuries in an attack in Buner. There has been one major such attack in 2020. On January 29, two LHVs Shakeela and Ghuncha lost their lives during an anti-polio drive in the Swabi district.