THE first attack on a polio team in Pakistan took place on July 17, 2012, in Karachi’s Gadap Town, resulting in injury to one international staff of WHO and a day later a union council polio worker was shot dead in Gadap Town.

Had the Sindh government taken prompt action after these two attacks, violence against polio workers initiated in Sindh could have been prevented from taking root and spreading to other provinces.

Between July 2012 and November 2014, 57 people, including vaccinators, health workers and security personnel escorting polio teams during the door-to-door immunisation campaigns have been killed reportedly across Pakistan.

A province-wise breakdown shows that most of the casualties took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where 24 people (nine health workers and 15 security personnel) were killed during this period.

Another 17 people — three health workers and 14 security personnel — were killed in Fata. Meanwhile, nine health workers were killed in Karachi and, recently, deadly shooting of four polio workers in Quetta, wherein three women and a man were killed, while three others were wounded. A worker who survived the attack told the media that security arrangements were inadequate.

Over 70pc police force is deployed with political VIPs to provide them security. A large proportion of the police in Pakistan are working as security guards for politicians of the PML-N, PPP and other provincial elites, including Balochistan Governor Muhammad Khan Achakzai and Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch and their families.

One such VIP, JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman, had a narrow escape a few weeks ago when a suicide bomber detonated explosives near his vehicle where two people were killed and 15 others injured. The vehicle of the JUI-F chief was bullet-proof and he remained unhurt.

The interior ministry should seriously look into the security arrangements for polio workers.

The present strength of the police force should be sufficient if it is better organised and is not unnecessarily deployed for political VIPs. Security is a primary obligation of the government to ensure that the country’s polio eradication programme is in order.

The federal and provincial governments need to move beyond the prevalent state of ‘blame game’ and deploy security adequately and transparently. Pakistan has reported 260 polio cases to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative this year.

Fouzia Rahman

Karachi

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2014