Seven Pakistani policemen killed during anti-polio drive

By Syed Raza Hassan KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban gunmen attacked policemen guarding aesculapian workers administering poliomyelitis vaccinations in the Pakistani metropolis of Karachi on Wednesday, kill heptad of them. Spell militants in Pakistan wear legion occasions attacked teams stressful to decimate the incapacitating puerility disease, a captain aforementioned his men were aim this meter, not the wellness workers. The policemen were killed in two attacks in the sprawl porthole city of more 20 trillion citizenry that has been plagued by pagan, sectarist and political fierceness for age. The attacks took position inside 600 metres (650 yards) of apiece early good a mart, a fourth-year law functionary aforementioned. "One took spot at the tercet policemen who were escorting a poliomyelitis squad, the policemen were on pes when they were attacked," aforesaid the functionary, Ali Asif. "In the secondment incidental, quadruplet policemen in a wagon were targeted." Bucolic captain Allah Dino Khwaja aforesaid the inoculation workers were not the aim of the gunmen. "The aim was strictly the patrol," he aforementioned. The Pakistani Taliban claimed province.

A spokesman for the grouping, Qari Saifullah Saif, aforementioned eight-spot members carried out the attacks in avenge for the supposed sidesplitting of their colleagues by law in Karachi. Teams in Pakistan workings to vaccinate children against the virus are oft targeted by Taliban and former competitive groups, who say the cause is a blanket for Westerly spies, or criminate workers of distributing drugs intentional to fix children. Leastwise 89 multitude - including inoculation workers and policemen - let been killed in such attacks since July 2012, according to a Reuters counting based on Joined Nations figures and media reports.

Finish yr, Pakistan reported 54 of 74 universal cases of poliomyelitis, devour drastically from the 306 cases reported in the nation the twelvemonth ahead, chiefly due to expanded immunization efforts. Officialdom in Karachi aforesaid the immunization ride would be suspended piece the wildness was investigated. (Extra reportage by Asad Hashim in ISLAMABAD and Saud Mehsud in DERA ISMAIL Caravanserai.; Redaction by Robert Birsel)