Police have arrested four people for torturing members of a polio team as they were taking part in a vaccination campaign in Karachi. The incident took place in Block No. 14 of Federal B Area in Karachi. Senior Superintendent of Police Central Zeeshan Siddique said that a case is registered against the accused in Joharabad Police Station in Karachi. Earlier, on October 10, 2025, a polio worker was killed in a suspected targeted attack on the Super Highway.

Site Superhighway Industrial Area SHO Wilayat Shah said that Rehmanullah, 30, was on his way to Surjani Town on a motorcycle when unknown suspects opened fire on him near Jamia-tu-Rasheed. He sustained critical bullet wounds and was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead. The victim was a resident of Quetta Town near Madras Chowk. On October 15, militants had killed a police officer guarding polio vaccination workers in Nowshera District.

The policeman was killed on the third day of a nationwide anti-polio campaign targeting 45 million children. "Two armed militants targeted a police officer assigned to protect a polio team," local police official Bilal Khan told AFP. "He was killed on the spot," Khan added. The polio team remained safe, according to the police. Wednesday's attack was claimed by a militant group called Ittehad-ul-Mujahideen Pakistan, a local offshoot of the Pakistani Taliban.

A day earlier on Tuesday (October 14), a Levies constable deployed for the security of a polio team was killed when unidentified assailants opened fire on him in Swat district. The polio workers were administering vaccines inside a house while the constable was standing guard outside when he was attacked. Pakistan is one of two countries, along with Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic, but militants have killed hundreds of police officers and health workers over the past decade as part of a campaign against the Pakistani state.

Pakistan recorded a surge in polio cases last year, with 74 infections eported, compared to just six in 2023. So far this year, 29 polio cases have been recorded, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa accounting for 18 cases, the highest in the country. Polio, a highly infectious virus mainly affecting children under five, can result in lifelong paralysis but is easily prevented by the oral administration of a few drops of a vaccine. There is a raft of misinformation circulating about the vaccine in rural Pakistan, including that it is a CIA plot to stop Muslims from having children.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)