KARACHI: A police officer wounded critically while escorting a polio team in Orangi Town on January 19 succumbed to his wounds during treatment at a private hospital on Friday, the police said.

Thirty-four-year-old Assistant Sub Inspector Tabassum Ali Abro was critically wounded in a gun attack in the Banaras area of Orangi Town, where he was escorting a polio team. The ASI was standing in Sector 4 while a polio team was vaccinating children in a house when gunmen on a motorcycle appeared at 10.30am, the police added. They fired two shots and escaped without being challenged by two other policemen there.

ASI Abro sustained a single bullet wound in the head and was admitted to a private hospital on Stadium Road, where he died at 6pm on Friday.

The police authorities at that time had said that the attack might not have been carried out by suspected militants.

The responsibility for many attacks on polio teams in the past were claimed by militant groups.

SSP-West Azfar Mahesar said that the police did not suspect the involvement of militants in this incident. “We have reason to believe that the Taliban were not involved in this act,” said the officer.

It was a targeted attack on the police officer, not the on polio team, added the officer.

SSP Mahesar said that a ‘third force’ was involved in the attack which wanted to destabilise law and order in the metropolis.

ASI Abro was recruited in the recently established Anti-Encroachment Cell of the police, which was being run by the Board of Revenue of Sindh to tackle the issue of growing encroachments in the city.

He was called from the AEC to perform his duty during the polio campaign in Orangi Town. He hailed from Garhi Yasin in Shikarpur district.

Published in Dawn, January 31st, 2015

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