By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: A police constable was killed, and four other officers were wounded on Monday when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a security detail escorting polio vaccination workers in Hangu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said, marking the first such assault on law enforcement personnel protecting the teams this year.
The attack occurred in the Chapri Waziran area of Thall tehsil as Pakistan launched its second nationwide polio vaccination campaign of 2026. Police said the gunmen struck suddenly as the officers moved into position to safeguard door-to-door vaccinators on the opening day of the drive, which runs through April 19. The officers returned fire in a gun battle that lasted about an hour, according to a police spokesperson. Officials later reported that two assailants were killed in the exchange, though their accomplices removed the bodies from the scene before security forces could reach them.
Hangu police described the incident as a “sudden” terrorist ambush on the law enforcement party. The wounded officers were rushed to a nearby hospital for treatment, while additional police and security personnel were deployed across the area to hunt for the attackers. No group has claimed responsibility.
Kohat Deputy Inspector General Irfan Tariq praised the officers’ immediate response, saying they had shown bravery in thwarting the assault and that the assailants “would not be forgiven under any circumstances.” A search operation was underway in the surrounding terrain, police said.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi condemned the attack as “an extremely cowardly act” targeting personnel performing a national duty. In a statement issued by his office, Afridi said terrorists would never succeed in their “nefarious aims” and directed the provincial police chief to submit a detailed report. He expressed grief over the constable’s death, pledged full government support for the bereaved family and ordered the best possible medical care for the injured officers. The chief minister added that the provincial government and the public remained “on the same page in the war against terrorism.”
Local police officials insisted the polio campaign in Hangu would proceed without interruption. “The terrorists cannot demoralize the nation,” a statement from Hangu police said.
The assault came as more than 400,000 frontline health workers fanned out across Pakistan to administer oral polio vaccine to more than 45 million children under age 5. The drive, coordinated by the National Emergency Operations Center, also includes vitamin A supplements to bolster children’s immunity. It is being conducted simultaneously with a similar effort in neighbouring Afghanistan to curb cross-border transmission of the virus.
Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only two countries where wild poliovirus is still endemic. The disease, which mainly strikes children younger than 5, can cause lifelong paralysis but is easily prevented by two drops of vaccine. Progress has been uneven, however, because of persistent security threats, vaccine hesitancy in some communities and pockets of misinformation.
Health officials highlighted measurable gains this year. Poliovirus has been detected in environmental samples in only 23 of Pakistan’s 87 districts so far in 2026, down sharply from 82 districts in 2025, according to the National Emergency Operations Center. The number of positive environmental samples has fallen from 651 last year to 40 this year. Pakistan recorded 31 confirmed polio cases in 2025; only one case has been reported so far in 2026, in Sujawal district of Sindh province.
Anwarul Haq, head of the national polio program, described the improvement as significant but cautioned that the country had entered a decisive phase. Ayesha Raza Farooq, the prime minister’s focal person on polio eradication, said Pakistan was “closer than ever to ending polio” yet warned that this was “also the most critical stage of the effort.” Polio has no cure, she noted, but is entirely preventable. “Protecting every child through vaccination is the safest and most effective way to stop the virus,” she said, urging parents and caregivers to cooperate with vaccination teams.
The Monday attack fits a grim pattern. Polio vaccinators and their police escorts have been repeatedly targeted by militants, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces. In February, a police officer was killed when gunmen fired on a vaccination team in Chaman district of Balochistan. Over the past decade, hundreds of police officers and health workers have died in such assaults, many of them in the former tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where militant groups have long operated.
Official data from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since 2012 illustrate the toll: 96 people killed in attacks linked to polio campaigns, including 61 policemen, 27 health workers and five civilians. Another 170 people were injured — 124 policemen, 28 health workers and 21 civilians. Thirty-six individuals were kidnapped, among them 32 health workers, three civilians and one policeman. Of all those killed, injured or abducted, 283 were men and 18 were women.
Militants have long portrayed the vaccination drives as Western plots or religiously objectionable. Some firebrand clerics have falsely claimed the oral vaccine contains pork or alcohol, though Islamic scholars across Pakistan have repeatedly endorsed the campaign. Public trust was further damaged in 2011 when it emerged that the US Central Intelligence Agency had used a fake hepatitis B vaccination program in Abbottabad as cover while hunting Osama bin Laden. The episode fueled conspiracy theories that linger in some conservative areas.
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