Cop guarding polio team martyred in Nowshera | The Express Tribune
Key Takeaways
- A police constable, Maqsood Ali, was martyred while providing security for a polio vaccination team in Nowshera, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
- Unidentified assailants shot the constable and subsequently fled the scene.
- This attack follows a similar incident a day earlier in the Swat district involving the killing of another constable guarding a polio team.
- Local police officials confirmed the incident, and a large search operation has been launched to find the perpetrators.
- The violence occurs while Pakistan, particularly Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, is experiencing a significant resurgence in polio cases.
A police constable named Maqsood Ali, who was deployed to protect a polio vaccination team in the Nowshera district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, was martyred on Wednesday after unidentified assailants opened fire on him. The attackers successfully fled the scene following the shooting, which occurred in the Kahee village of the Nizampur area. This violent incident mirrors a similar attack just one day prior, where a Levies constable was killed while guarding a polio team in the Swat district. Local police officials confirmed the targeted nature of the attack, noting that two armed militants were responsible for killing the officer instantly. Senior officials, including the RPO Mardan and DPO Nowshera, visited the site to assess the situation, and a heavy police contingent initiated a search operation for the perpetrators. The context of these attacks is alarming, as Pakistan recorded a significant surge in polio cases last year (74 infections) and has already reported 29 cases this year, with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa leading the country with 18 cases.
