Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead two police officers on Tuesday while they were travelling to protect polio vaccination teams in northwestern Pakistan.
The attack took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as the officers headed toward a nearby village. A third officer sustained injuries in the ambush, according to local police officials.
Police official Ali Rehman Khan told reporters that no vaccination staff were inside the police vehicle at the time of the shooting. Responsibility for the attack has not been claimed by any group.
Authorities say similar assaults are frequently carried out by the Pakistan Taliban, or TTP, and other armed factions. These groups spread false claims that polio vaccination campaigns are Western plots to sterilise children.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the shooting in a statement on X. He described the incident as extremely regrettable and stated that the sacrifices of officers protecting vaccination teams will not be forgotten.
The violence followed an incident on Monday where four other police officers guarding polio workers were abducted in the same province. Search operations to locate the missing officers are under way.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only nations globally where wild poliovirus is endemic. Pakistan recorded 31 cases last year.
The latest security incidents coincided with a new immunisation drive launched on Sunday to reach nearly 24 million children across 97 high-risk districts.
Health authorities registered the country’s eighth polio case of the year on Sunday, involving a 13-month-old girl from Khyber’s Khyber district. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is the hardest-hit province with six cases, while Sindh accounts for the remaining two.
