LAKKI MARWAT: Unknown motorcyclists shot dead a police official on polio duty in Jhandokhel locality of Bannu district on Wednesday.

The officials said the incident occurred in limits of the cantonment police station. They said ASI Akhir Zaman was ambushed by assailants when he was returning to the police station after performing security duty with a polio team.

The officials said the assailants escaped the place after the attack, and the body was shifted to the district headquarters hospital for postmortem.

A police contingent cordoned off the area and launched a search operation, but there were no reports of any immediate arrest.

Deputy commissioner Mohammad Zubair Niazi, DPO Waseem Riaz and other police officials attended the funeral prayers of martyred official offered at the Iqbal Marwat Shaheed Police Lines in Bannu city.

On the occasion, a police contingent presented a salute to the martyred cop. Later, his coffin was taken to his native Gulanoor Barakzai village for burial.

Meanwhile, officials of the education and revenue departments immunised over two dozen children of the reluctant parents against polio after holding talks with elders in Kotka Bahadarkhel village of Tajazai here on Wednesday.

During the ongoing anti-polio drive, a mobile health department team had gone to the village to administer oral polio vaccine to children under the age of five. However, the local elders did not allow vaccinators to immunise the children, and asked them to leave the village, telling them that they won’t allow their children to get vaccinated against polio until the area’s only primary school was made functional.

The health workers reported the matter to deputy commissioner Abdul Haseeb who tasked district education officer Midrarullah to visit the area and convince villagers on immunisation of children against the crippling disease.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2020