- Case registered under sections 294 and 509 of CrPC.
- The incident takes place in an apartment in the city of Surjani.
- Pakistan has recorded more than 60 cases this year.
KARACHI: A first information report (FIR) has been registered against a man in the port city’s Surjani town for allegedly harassing an anti-polio worker, it emerged on Saturday.
In a case registered on December 18 at Surjani police station, a polio worker said a man was exposed to her while administering polio drops to him in an apartment in the afternoon.
Pakistan has seen a rise in polio cases this year, recording 64 this year compared to six in 2023, with the latest case also recorded in Sindh, whose capital is Karachi.
Following the complaint, police said they had launched an investigation. The case has been filed against sections 294 (obscene acts and songs) and 509 (insults to modesty or sexual harassment) of the CrPC.
Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only countries where polio remains endemic and vaccination teams are frequently attacked, sometimes also resulting in the deaths of polio workers and security personnel.
This development comes immediately after an anti-polio team was attacked in a Korangi slum in Karachi, in which two policemen and the same number of anti-polio workers were injured.
The Korangi family who lived there initially argued with them and refused to allow the children to be vaccinated. After a heated exchange, the men and women of the house resorted to violence against the polio team comprising Saba, Rabia and Dr Khalid, accompanied by police officers, namely Taufiq, Jahangir and a police constable Aniza Naz.
The family members mistreated the team and also used a shovel to attack them. The family tore the police officers’ uniforms, slapped them and snatched their mobile phones.
Upon receiving the information, a large police contingent arrived at the scene and arrested the suspects. The arrested women were identified as Samina, wife of Sheena Khan, Mehjabeen, wife of Suleman, Amna, daughter of Naseem Gul, and Iqra, daughter of Sheena Khan, while the male members of the family who were arrested were identified as Gul Imran and Sufiyan. .
The federal government launched a four-day campaign on Monday that aimed to cover 143 districts across the country, with more than 400,000 polio workers going door-to-door with the goal of immunizing more than 45 million children over the age of 45. five years.
“I appeal to all parents in Pakistan to fully cooperate with the campaign and vaccinate their children against polio to protect them from this disease permanently,” said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during the launch of the campaign, days before of the last attack.
Polio can be easily prevented by oral administration of a few drops of vaccine, but health care workers risk their lives to save others. Dozens of polio vaccination workers and their escorts have been killed over the years.
