KARACHI: A suspected militant was shot dead in an alleged encounter with police while another was arrested following their alleged attack on a polio vaccination team in Sohrab Goth on Tuesday, prompting the health authorities to immediately and indefinitely halt the anti-polio campaign, officials said.

They said gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on the polio workers in the Ahsanabad area. The police posted for the team’s security returned fire. One of the suspects, identified as Noor Mohammed, alias Misbah, was wounded in the shootout and arrested. His accomplice Amir Hamza was also held, said SSP of Malir Imran Shaukat. The wounded man was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where he died during treatment.

The Malir SSP said the police had arrested four suspected militants in Sohrab Goth during a targeted operation on Monday and they had credible information about the militant plot to attack polio workers on Tuesday. So a heavy deployment of police was made in the area for the protection of the polio team.

He said Amir Hamza was the chief of a banned militant outfit in Sohrab Goth’s Janjal Goth locality. Hamza was allegedly also involved in the murder of Awami National Party worker Deen Mohammed Waziri in Janjal Goth recently, said Mr Shaukat. He said in that attack Amir Hamza was also wounded in the retaliatory firing by friends of the ANP worker but his accomplice Misbah took the wounded man away.

Both suspected militants, reportedly belonging to the banned Tehreek-i- Taliban Pakistan, were wanted in several targeted killings and extortion cases in Sohrab Goth, the SSP said.

Immunisation drive stopped

Though Tuesday’s botched attack on police guarding polio teams failed to physically harm any of the polio volunteers out to inoculate children in the infamous part of Gadap Town, the authorities sent a prompt signal to halt the immunisation drive.

The city’s health officials said no polio worker was around when two armed militants attacked the policemen standing guard in the Ahsanabad locality of Gadap’s notorious union council-4.

However, residents and polio workers scurried around after hearing the gunfire. Soon they were asked to abandon their work and return home in escort of the policemen who had killed an attacker and arrested another.

“None of our polio workers were harmed because of the incident. All of them are safe,” said Dr Zafar Ijaz, the city’s chief for health services, while speaking to Dawn.

“However, because of the grim situation, we have stopped our immunisation campaign in the area until our workers recover from mental stress and fear,” he said.

One worker said she was accompanying another volunteer at a house to vaccinate a child when she heard the gunshots.

“It was highly terrifying for us but we didn’t know what to do,” she said. The team took shelter in the house until the gunfire stopped. “Soon my cellphone rang and our group leader asked us to congregate outside to return home,” she said.

It was the third incident of its kind on polio vaccinators or their guards this year in Karachi — second in Gadap.

A previous attack on Aug 21 was also reported in Gadap, where more than 30 female vaccinators inoculating children with booster drops against polio were attacked with gunshots by six men, which forced them to take shelter in a nearby school until the police guards returned fire and caught one of the attackers.

The police identified the arrested man as an Afghan refugee and claimed that he belonged to the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. Police seized a hand grenade, a TT pistol and five bullets from him.

The first violent attack on polio vaccinators was reported on April 16 when two female siblings were attacked in a similar fashion in Baldia Town’s sector 8. The police had arrested the lone attacker.

Last year, in the last of the three such attacks on Dec 17 a young volunteer associated with the anti-polio campaign was shot dead in Gadap Town, stopping the three-day anti-polio campaign in union council 4.

In July 2012, a local paramedic associated with polio vaccination was shot dead and a World Health Organisation doctor, Fosten Dido, from Ghana and his driver were wounded in two separate attacks in the Sohrab Goth area.

Despite such attacks, polio workers, belonging to poor families, have little afterthought to abandon the risky job as the 250-rupees-a-day is prized money for them.

“I can’t desert this job. It is occasional, but the money it offers is help for my family,” said a polio worker who survived a similar attack previously.

The security situation in Karachi is so dismal that it has not allowed completing the nationwide polio campaign here, which started a month ago and completed in the scheduled duration of four days elsewhere.

Officials said many parts of SITE Town were yet to be covered.

“Our polio workers depend on the availability of police force during their work and for police polio is not a top priority,” said a senior official.