Bomb Targets Polio Protection Team in Northwest Pakistan, Killing 5 Policemen

A bomb targeting a polio protection team in northwestern Pakistan killed at least five police officers, media reports said on Monday.

The explosion took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district, where a police truck transporting around 25 policemen for anti-polio campaign duties was targeted by an IED.

In a statement, caretaker KP Chief Minister Arshad Hussain Shah condemned the blast and expressed his grief on the “martyrdom of police officials”. “The police morale would not be defeated by such cowardly incidents,” the chief minister was quoted as saying by Dawn newspaper.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Sherry Rehman condemned the attack on the police officials deployed for the security of the anti-polio team in Bajaur. She said the PPP stands in solidarity with the families of the five personnel martyred in the explosion.

“Terrorists have attacked not only the police but also the health of our children. An attack on the security of the anti-polio team should not be tolerated under any circumstances, it is directly related to the health of our children,” she said.

Sherry said the miscreants did not want the complete eradication of polio from the country. She demanded the “terrorists” involved in the incident should be arrested immediately and punished severely.

The attack happened in Mamund in Bajaur district, on the border with Afghanistan, in an area where militancy has been rising since the Taliban took control of Kabul in 2021. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but the Pakistan Taliban, have killed polio vaccination workers in the past.

(With agency inputs)