PESHAWAR: Assailants shot dead a doctor associated with the polio eradication campaign on the outskirts of the provincial capital late on Saturday, police said on Sunday.

They said Dr Zakaullah was working as medical officer at a government health facility in the Shakarpura locality of the city.

An official source said he was the 41st polio worker to be gunned down in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since 2011. About 40 other workers have been injured in the attacks.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, the spokesman for Jamaatul Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack.

A police officer said Dr Zakaullah’s son, Muhammad Suleman, had informed the Khazana police station that some gunmen had opened fire on his father in the Wahid Ghari area. He had gone to a mosque to offer night prayers when the attack took place.

When contacted, a family member of the slain doctor told Dawn that police had asked them not to discuss the incident with anyone.

An official working with the provincial polio eradication programme said Dr Zakaullah was chief of the polio eradication team of a union council.

He said that in 2012-13 the doctor worked as the EPI coordinator for Peshawar’s Town-II.

“He was very brave and continued to work for polio eradication at a time when no one was ready to be associated with this programme,” the official said.

However, he added that it was not clear whether the doctor was killed due to his association with polio eradication programme or for some other reason.

“It is very difficult to say something with clarity at the moment.”

The Khazana police registered a case and began investigating the murder, the sources said.

Published in Dawn September 12th, 2016