KARACHI: The Sindh government on Tuesday suspended the anti-polio drive across the province, hours after a polio team including two women were killed in Karachi’s Qayyumabad area.
Earlier in the day, four gunmen riding motorcycles opened fire on a polio team in Qayyumabad, injuring four polio workers including two women. They shifted to Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) for medical treatment, but three of them succumbed to injuries on their way to hospital.
Moreover, two more workers went missing while police feared that they might have been abducted by the miscreants or have sought refuge to safe their lives.
The incident took place a day after the provincial health authorities began to inoculate some 7.6 million children of Sindh with polio vaccine as part of a nationwide drive that is to continue until Thursday.
The children of Sindh are among the over 33 million Pakistani children who are being administered with anti-polio vaccine during the National Immunisation Days (NIDs), scheduled to continue until January 23.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in his tweets on Tuesday said that they will eradicate polio if the government is able to wipe out the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Eradicate TTP & we will eradicate polio. End TTP & Drone strikes will end. Eliminate TTP & we will eliminate terrorism.Time 2 unite vs TTP.
— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) January 21, 2014
Wht option is left for a nation whn their ‘leaders’ cant agree that TTP swine who murder polio workers deserve 2 b eradicated once n 4 all?
— BilawalBhuttoZardari (@BBhuttoZardari) January 21, 2014