QUETTA: Two police personnel guarding a polio vaccination team embraced martyrdom in a gun attack by unidentified armed men in the Nawan Killi area of Quetta, on Tuesday, which was the first day of a weeklong campaign across 35 districts of Balochistan.
Officials said the policemen were on duty outside a house, where female vaccinators were administering polio drops to children under the age of five years, when the armed motorcyclists fired at them before speeding away.
The martyred police constables were identified as Shoukat Ali and Mohammad Mehdi, both belonging to the Hazara community.
The police said automatic weapons were used by the shooters giving little chance to return fire. “Both police constables received multiple bullet injuries that caused their instant death,” senior police officer Masood Kasi said.
He added the polio vaccination team remained safe in the deadly attack as they were inside the house administering drops to children to protect them from the crippling ailment.
“We found two kinds of cartages from the site including an AK-47 and a 9 MM pistol,” police investigators disclosed.
Soon after the ambush, Zarghoonabad police officials rushed to the site, cordoned off the area, shifted the bodies to hospital and the polio workers to a safer place. “We have received the bodies of two policemen at civil hospital. They sustained gunshot wounds on upper parts of their bodies,” said the spokesman for the civil hospital, Dr Wasim Baig.
While the polio campaign was stopped in Nawan Killi area for the time being after the shooting, it continued across 35 districts of the province with added security, officials at the provincial emergency centre told Dawn.
Terming the targeted killing an ‘act of terrorism’, police said: “We are investigating the tragic incident and soon the attackers will be arrested.”
No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, which drew instant condemnation from Chief Minister Abdul Qudoos Bizenjo and Home Minister Ziaullah Langove. Later, directives were issued to the authorities concerned to ensure that all-out efforts were made to arrest the attackers, their facilitators and plotters.
Published in Dawn, August 2nd, 2023
