PESHAWAR: Unknown assailants shot dead a female health worker of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation (EPI) on Ring Road here on Thursday, police and health officials said.

The health worker was identified as Shazia Bibi, 35, and a resident of Pishtakhara locality.

Police said that Shazia was on her way to work when unidentified motorcyclists opened fire on her near Madina CNG Station on the Ring Road at around 9am.

A police official said that the number of attackers could not be ascertained so far. He said that body of the health worker was sent to the Khyber Medical College for autopsy.

He said that Shazia was working with the Fatimid Foundation and the police had registered an FIR against the unknown attackers on the complaint by her husband.

He said that the family informed the police that they had no enmity with anyone.

However sources told Dawn that Shazia was not a Fatimid Foundation’s employee; rather she was a government employee working at the EPI clinic set up on the foundation’s premises.

KP EPI director Dr Mohammad Saleem told Dawn that the health worker was a regular employee of his department and attached with the district health office, Peshawar.

He said that Shazia was on her way to work when she came under attack.

Dr Saleem said that the motives behind the killing were not clear and it would be premature to say something in this regard at this moment.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2019