QUETTA: Unidentified assailants shot dead a polio campaign supervisor linked to Pakistan’s polio vaccination drive in the provincial capital, police said on Friday.
Gunmen opened fire on Hafiz Qadir Jan, a polio campaign supervisor and local JUI-F leader, in Quetta’s Killi Thekedar area as he was raising awareness about the upcoming vaccination drive. He died on the spot. The attackers fled on a motorcycle. Police and residents shifted the body to Civil Hospital Quetta for post-mortem and launched an investigation.
Earlier in the day, gunmen killed another polio worker in Chaman’s Killi Muhammad Hassan Tandoor area. He was on duty with an anti-polio team when the assailants opened indiscriminate fire. Two female workers with him escaped unhurt by sheltering in a nearby house. The attackers fled through narrow lanes of Kunjhan Abad, police said.
Security forces later increased patrols in Chaman. Authorities have frequently faced threats, propaganda, and refusals during vaccination campaigns in Balochistan, particularly in border districts.
Balochistan, a day earlier, had announced a targeted polio vaccination campaign from September 11, aiming to immunize more than two million children in the 26 districts of the province, said health authorities on Thursday.
