Gunmen Kill Two Police Officers Guarding Polio Teams in Pakistan, a Day After Four Abducted

Two Pakistani police officers are dead and a third is wounded after gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on their vehicle in northwestern Pakistan today, Nov. 3. The officers were on their way to guard polio vaccination teams.

The shooting happened in Mohmand, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan. The attackers fled.

What police say happened

Police officer Ayaz Khan said the officers were traveling to a nearby village to protect vaccination teams when they came under fire during a door-to-door campaign.

Police official Ali Rehman Khan told AFP that "two police personnel were martyred and another was injured in the attack." He added that no polio vaccination staff were in the police vehicle.

No one has claimed responsibility. The Pakistani Taliban, known as the TTP, and other armed groups have regularly carried out similar attacks on polio teams and the police who protect them.

Those groups claim vaccination drives are a Western plot to sterilize children. That claim is false.

Four more missing

The killings came a day after four people tied to the campaign were abducted in Tank, another Khyber Pakhtunkhwa district. Provincial Gov. Faisal Karim Kundi's statement described them as polio workers and condemned the abductions. He urged authorities to move immediately to secure their release.

AFP's account describes the four as police officers assigned to protect polio workers. Either way, as of today they have not been found. Search efforts are under way.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi called the Mohmand attack "intolerable" and offered condolences to the officers' families. He said they had worked for a healthier future for the country.

President Asif Ali Zardari called it "extremely regrettable and condemnable" in a post on X. "Police personnel deployed to protect polio teams are performing a national duty; their sacrifices will not be forgotten," he wrote.

The campaign and the case count

The violence hit as Pakistan pushed a targeted drive to reach nearly 24 million children across 97 high-risk districts. Vaccinators were out in places like Peshawar and Lahore on Monday, Nov. 2, with police escorts in view.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries where wild poliovirus is still endemic, according to the World Health Organization.

Pakistan reported 31 cases last year. Health authorities have registered eight so far in 2026.

The latest was a 13-month-old girl in Khyber district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Six of this year's eight cases are in that province. The other two are in Sindh.

Polio spreads easily from person to person. In severe cases it causes paralysis.

The security problem

The logic is simple. Armed escorts exist because vaccinators get targeted. Now the escorts are being killed and, in Monday's case, taken.

The province with the most polio cases is also the one where the gunmen operate. Officers assigned to guard health workers are being hit in the same province where the virus is still circulating.

Officials have named no suspects. No arrests have been announced. Whether the four people taken in Tank are found alive is the most immediate concern. Police have not said whether the campaign will continue in the affected districts.