Karachi mob attacks polio vaccination team, 6 people arrested

December 21, 2024 09:16

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A polio vaccination team and their police escort were attacked on Friday by a mob during a vaccination drive in a densely populated area of Pakistan's Karachi city.

The police reported the arrest of six individuals, including four women, in connection with the assault, which occurred in the Korangi area of the city, in a settlement predominantly inhabited by families from the country's northern tribal areas.

The polio team went to a house for administering the vaccine drops where the women present called two armed men and they attacked not only the health workers but also the policemen accompanying them, said SSP Korangi, Kamran Khan.

Following the initial assault, the attackers called additional men from the settlement, who came armed with shovels and batons and escalated the attack on the health workers and police personnel.

Harassment and attacks against health workers carrying out polio vaccination drives for the government is fairly common in Pakistan.

On Tuesday, three security forces personnel were killed and two others injured in a blast targeting a vehicle carrying polio workers in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

A day earlier, a polio worker and a police constable were shot dead in separate incidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as the country began a week-long polio eradication campaign amid tight security.

Earlier this week, a female health worker was forcibly kept in confinement at an apartment building in Karachi's Nazimabad after she went to an apartment to carry out her duties. -- PTI

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