Security and police personnel were deployed to parts of northwestern Pakistan after two police officers protecting polio vaccination teams in an area were shot dead.
On Tuesday, the attacker, who travelled on a motorcycle, opened fire on a police car in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Another officer was injured in the attack. The officer was travelling to a nearby village to protect polio vaccination teams.
“Two police personnel were martyred, and another was injured in the attack. However, no polio vaccination staff were present in the police vehicle,” police official Ali Rehman Khan told the AFP.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, similar attacks carried out by the Pakistan Taliban have been observed in the past.
The terror groups believe that polio vaccination teams are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilise children. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said that the shooting was “extremely regrettable and condemnable”.
“Police personnel deployed to protect polio teams are performing a national duty; their sacrifices will not be forgotten,” he added.
In another incident, suspected militants abducted four polio workers in a tank in another district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to a statement from provincial Governor Faisal Karim Kundi.
The attack comes amid the fresh polio vaccination campaign that began on Sunday. The campaign targets nearly 24 million children in 97 high-risk districts. Health authorities also registered the country's eight polio case of the year in a 13 year old girl from Khyber Paktunkwa's Khyber district. The province had six cases followed by two in Sindh.
Pakistan and neighbour Afghanistan are the only two countries where the wild poliovirus is endemic, according to the WHO.
