FAISALABAD-
Gunmen on Tuesday killed a member of a polio vaccination team in Pakistan, as Taliban insurgents claimed the killing of two policemen assigned to protect an immunisation team the day before.
Tuesday’s attack — the latest of many on the teams — occurred in a residential area of Faisalabad district in Punjab province, where workers were immunising children on the second day of an anti-polio drive.
The victim was Muhammad Sarfaraz, 40 a schoolteacher working as a volunteer in the campaign, senior police official Ali Waseem told a foreign news agency.
“Gunmen on a motorcycle fired six shots and he died on the spot,” Waseem said.
Doctor Rana Waqar Sadiq, a senior health official, confirmed the killing of a member of his polio team.
Outlawed militant group Jundullah claimed responsibility for killing, reported private media.
Pakistan is one of only three countries where polio remains endemic. Attempts to stamp it out have been badly hit by opposition from militants and attacks on immunisation teams that have claimed 67 lives since December 2012.
The militants claim that polio vaccination is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.
Mohammad Khorasani, main spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the killing of two policemen in northwest Pakistan they day before.
They were killed in the town of Buner near the Swat Valley while on the way to protect a polio vaccination team.
“Police are our target and both the men were killed because they were from the police force,” Khorasani told the news agency by telephone from an undisclosed location.
The biggest enemies of Pakistan are obvious…the Taliban and all their offshoot organizations must be eliminated from Pakistani soil…those religio/political groups who support these Taliban terrorists must be stopped also…there is no justification for this carnage and all Taliban and their supporters are responsible for these acts of barbarism…
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