Pakistan police arrest key suspect in gang rape of a woman polio worker

A health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child at a school in Peshawar, Pakistan on Sept. 9, 2024. (Muhammad Sajjad / AP Photo)

MULTAN, Pakistan -

Pakistani police arrested the key suspect in the gang rape of a woman polio worker who was assaulted by three men during last week's vaccination campaign, officials said Wednesday. Two other suspects are still at large.

The assault on Thursday in Jacobabad, a district in the southern Sindh province, was one in a spate of attacks targeting polio vaccination teams going door to door in the campaign across Pakistan.

The woman who was attacked had alerted the authorities, saying she was raped by three men after going into a house in Jacobabad to administer polio drops to the children there, local police official Mohammad Saifal said.

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The suspect, identified as Ahmad Jakhrani, was arrested overnight, Saifal added.

Police are still seeking the arrest of the two other men, accused of taking turns to assault the woman, Saifal said. A local police chief and a district administrator were fired for negligence following the attack, for failing to provide the polio worker with adequate security.

The attack shocked many Pakistanis as such sexual assaults are rare, though women polio workers have complained of harassment in the past during the campaigns. The provincial government in Sindh has said it would fully investigate the case.

Police also detained the husband of the attacked woman for kicking her out of their home and threatening to kill her after the assault over allegedly tarnishing the family's honour by being raped.

Sadia Javed, the spokesperson for the Sindh government, said others involved in the rape should soon be arrested as well.

"We are providing protection to the victim of assault," she said. "The government will ensure that all women polio workers get maximum security during the upcoming anti-polio campaigns."

So-called honour killings, in which women and girls are slain by their own relatives for allegedly dishonouring the family's reputation, are still common in Pakistan.

Saifal also said police have been deployed to the house where the woman was now staying with her relatives for her protection.

 

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Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are regularly marred by violence. Militants often target polio vaccination teams and police assigned to protect them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.

Since January, Pakistan has reported 17 new cases of polio, jeopardizing decades of efforts to eliminate the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease from the country. Polio often strikes children under age 5 and typically spreads through contaminated water.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in which the spread of polio has never been stopped.

Pakistan's government is planning another polio vaccination drive in October, said Anwarul Haq, who oversees polio campaigns in the country.