Police official on polio duty shot dead in Bannu

LAKKI MARWAT: Unknown motorcyclists in Jhandokhel town of Bannu district on Wednesday shot dead a police officer on polio duty.

The officials said the incident happened within the boundaries of the police station in the cantonment. They said that ASI Akhir Zaman was ambushed by attackers after doing security duty with a polio team while he was returning to the police station.

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The officials said the attackers fled the scene after the attack, and the body was transported to the postmortem district headquarters hospital.

A police contingent cordoned off the area and began a search operation, but no immediate arrest reports were reported.

The funeral prayers of a martyred official offered at the Iqbal Marwat Shaheed Police Lines in Bannu City were attended by Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Zubair Niazi, DPO Waseem Riaz, and other police officials.

In that day, a police unit greeted the martyred officer with a salute. Later, for burial, his coffin was taken to his native village of Gulanoor Barakzai.

Meanwhile, after holding talks with elders in Kotka Bahadarkhel village of Tajazai here on Wednesday, education and revenue department officials vaccinated more than two dozen children of reluctant parents against polio.

A mobile health department team went to the village to deliver an oral polio vaccine to children under the age of five during the current anti-polio campaign. The local elders, however, did not encourage vaccinators to immunise the children, and ordered them to leave the village, telling them that unless the only primary school in the area was made functioning, they would not allow their children to be vaccinated against polio

Deputy Commissioner Abdul Haseeb, who directed District Education Officer Midrarullah to visit the area and urge villagers to vaccinate children against the crippling disease, reported the matter to health staff.