ATTACKS on anti-polio vaccinators and the security teams that now routinely accompany them are desperately wicked crimes.

Violent and immoral, such attacks leave no part of state or society unaffected: directly, through the casualties inflicted on anti-polio vaccine teams and security personnel and, indirectly, through jeopardising the health of the next generation, especially in neighbourhoods which are already chronically under-resourced and face significant health challenges.

What needs to be done — not just in Karachi, but elsewhere in the country too where there is still some resistance to vaccines — is to revisit standard operating procedure to reduce the risk of casualties when attacks do occur as well as dedicate more resources to intelligence-gathering on polio-specific threats.

From the repetitive nature of such attacks and the early evidence often pointing to a predictable set of security lapses and a familiar group of suspects, it appears that the war on polio can be waged with more precision and better security.

Yet, the sheer deadliness of the attack on Wednesday, the number of militants involved and the city in which it occurred raise a specific set of questions too.

Consider that the army has, via the Rangers, been leading a crackdown on militancy and crime in Karachi since September 2013.

The sheer scale of the security threats in Karachi and the vastness of the provincial metropolis ensured that quick solutions would not materialise.

But if action was necessary and inevitable, so was remaining focused on the original cause — combating terrorism and organised crime in the city.

Instead, the Karachi operation has long drifted into other domains ie alleged political crimes and corruption.

As with all security decisions, there is an inherent trade-off involved: combating one problem leaves fewer resources to fight another. And as with all security decisions, a balance must be maintained.

Surely, if a group of militants — eight in number, according to reports — can attack and kill seven on-duty policemen in broad daylight in two different spots and then simply melt away, the threat from militancy is not receiving the kind of sustained attention it needs to be given in Karachi.

Are the Rangers and the military-led intelligence agencies operating in the provincial capital too stretched for the good of the city they are trying to stabilise and secure?

Of course, the problem is compounded on the civilian side.

The deployment of under-training policemen on guard duties during anti-polio vaccination drives only underscores the desperate lack of investment in the Sindh police.

The PPP, which has been in power in the province since 2008, seems utterly indifferent to even basic responsibilities, be it on the security side or governance.

With the PPP more interested in sparring with the military over the Karachi operation and the military seemingly unable to work with the civilians, the danger is that the space for militancy in Karachi may be expanding once again.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2016