Pakistani cricket team’s erstwhile captain-turned politician, Imran Khan, has announced to hold a protest march in September against unmanned predators (drones) strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Khan plans to mobilize around 100,000 people including workers and volunteers from Reprieve, a UK-based NGO working against capital punishment and drone attacks. The protest rally route includes Bannu, Tank, Miran Shah etc, areas which are infested by different groups of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. Movement in that area is quite restricted, with the exception of army and militants who generally avoid each other; traveling could be quite dangerous as could lead to aerial strikes and bloody ambushes. One could have difference of opinion with Khan on the usefulness of drone strikes (as compared to aerial bombardment which may result in extensive collateral damages), however, Khan could be effective in another area of conflict which needs politicians and NGOs’ urgent attention – persistent failure of anti-polio campaigns in areas wherein displaced Pashtuns from tribal belt are living for last several years, especially in Karachi, Sindh.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has broken the worrisome news that polio virus gas been found in sewage water samples collected from Gadap town and other rural outskirts of Karachi such as Sohrab goth, Baldia town.
WHO and its subsidiaries are unable to reach all the children in Pashtun localities of Karachi because of poor security situation and repeated attacks on polio vaccination teams in July.
We are not just talking about more than 200,000 children in North and South Waziristan and Khyber agency which have been declared by Taliban as no-go areas for anti-polio campaigners.
Unfortunately, we are facing the same situation in Karachi; however, here government writ shall permit the anti-polio campaign to proceed without any security risks to medical staff and volunteers. 22,000 children are at risk only in Karachi.
We request Imran Khan, who happens to be a Pashtun by himself, to divert his 100,000 –strong march to Karachi to convince the tribal and religious leaders not to hinder the vaccination campaign.
If Khan succeeds in helping out the eradication of polio virus in Karachi, it may have far reaching consequences for Khan’s political future in the city.
MASOOD KHAN
Saudi Arabia
