Unidentified miscreants fired shots at polio vaccination workers, killing one policeman while injuring another as they were providing security to a team of anti-polio health in Peshawar on Saturday, officials said.
Police officials said the attack took place when gunmen fired at polio vaccination team at Bahadur Kallay area of Peshawar.
The injured was shifted to a nearby hospital. He is reportedly in a critical condition.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the terrorist outfit Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan has repeatedly targeted health workers who are vaccinating against polio, accusing them of being spies.
The violence has seriously hampered the immunisation campaign in Pakistan, which is one of the three countries in the world where polio is endemic.
The resistance to polio vaccination by terrorists stiffened after the May 2011 raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in northern Pakistan as revelations surfaced that the Central Intelligence Agency had used Dr Shakil Afridi to run a fake vaccination campaign to gain access into Laden’s hideout.
Since then, the TTP terrorists have increased their attacks on the vaccination work and issued religious edicts claiming that the US uses it to run a spying network. Hard-line religious extremists also claim that the vaccinations aim to sterilise Muslims.
