Pakistani police arrest prime suspect in gang rape of polio worker

MULTAN, Pakistan — Pakistani police have arrested the main suspect in the gang rape of a polio worker who was attacked by three men during the vaccination campaign last week, officials said on Wednesday. Two other suspects are still at large.

Thursday's attack in Jacobabad, a district in southern Sindh province, was one of several attacks on polio vaccination teams going door-to-door across Pakistan as part of the campaign.

The woman who was attacked had alerted the authorities and said she had been raped by three men when she went to a house in Jacobabad to administer polio drops to children there, said local police officer Mohammad Saifal.

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

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

The attack shocked many Pakistanis, as such sexual assaults are rare, although female polio workers have complained of harassment during campaigns in the past. The provincial government in Sindh has announced that it will conduct a full investigation into the case.

The police also arrested the husband of the attacked woman because he had thrown her out of their house after the attack and threatened to kill her because she had allegedly tarnished the family's honour by raping her.

Sadia Javed, spokeswoman for the Sindh government, said the other people involved in the rape must also be arrested soon.

“We are providing protection to victims of attacks,” she said. “The government will ensure that all women polio workers are provided with maximum security during the upcoming anti-polio campaigns.”

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

Saifal also said that police forces had been deployed to the house where the woman was currently staying with relatives for her protection.

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

Seventeen new cases of polio have been reported in Pakistan since January, jeopardizing decades-long efforts to eradicate the potentially deadly, debilitating disease from the country. Polio often affects children under the age of five and is usually transmitted through contaminated water.

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

The Pakistani government plans another polio vaccination campaign in October, said Anwarul Haq, who oversees polio campaigns in the country.