Islamabad: As many as two police personnel were killed, and another injured after unidentified assailants opened fire on them on Tuesday when they were heading to join a polio team for security duty during the vaccination campaign in Mohmand district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local media reported.
Headquarters Deputy Superintendent of Police Liaquat Ali said that the attack took place near the Hashim Kor police checkpost in Pindiali tehsil of Mohmand, leading Pakistani daily Dawn reported.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two nations in the world where wild poliovirus remains endemic. Polio workers in Pakistan have been frequently targetted in attacks, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
On Monday, four polio workers were kidnapped by unidentified assailants after being subjected to gunfire in the Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
As per the details, four polio workers were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen in Tank and taken to an undisclosed place. Police have launched a probe into the incident, another Pakistani daily The Express Tribune reported.
In a separate incident, two polio workers were abducted by gunmen in the Azam Warsak area in Lower South Waziristan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and subsequently released.
Gunmen linked to the proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were allegedly responsible for the kidnapping of two members of a polio vaccination team. However, both of them were later released, The Express Tribune reported.
The attack on members of the polio vaccination team comes while Pakistan continues to report a surge in polio cases.
Pakistan reported the eighth polio case in 2026 from the Khyber district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday, the National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication (NEOC) said.
An official of the polio programme said that the affected child is a 13-month-old girl belonging to Bara tehsil of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said that this case was the second one from Khyber district and the sixth from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Dawn reported.
On September 22, two police personnel guarding polio workers were killed by armed assailants in Noshki district of the Balochistan province.
Noshki City Station House Officer (SHO) Munawar Zaman said that armed assailants on a motorcycle opened fire on police personnel guarding a team of female polio workers who were inoculating children during the vaccination drive, Dawn reported.
The polio team and its members were not hurt in the attack. The gunmen fled from the spot after taking the official weapons of police personnel.