Three polio vaccination workers have been abducted by armed militants in Kurram district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while a vaccination supervisor kidnapped in the neighbouring Khyber district has been released after three days in captivity, according to police and local sources.

The latest abduction took place in the Gandao area of Central Kurram, where unidentified armed militants took three personnel associated with the ongoing polio vaccination campaign. Police sources identified the abducted workers as Salahuddin, Ali Muhammad and Bilal Khan, all from the Gandao area. The circumstances of the abduction remain unclear, and the authorities have not given further details about the incident or the whereabouts of the missing workers.

Supervisor freed in Jamrud

In a separate development, polio campaign supervisor Abdul Jalil, who was abducted from the remote mountainous area of Chapri in Jamrud tehsil of Khyber district three days earlier, has been released. Khyber District Police Officer Waqar Ahmad confirmed his release, according to local police reports. The supervisor's name was also reported as Jalil Khan in an earlier account of the kidnapping published by Pakistan's Express Tribune on 4 November.

A week of attacks on the campaign

The incidents are the latest in a series of attacks and kidnappings targeting polio vaccination personnel and the security forces protecting them across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They come during a special nationwide anti-polio vaccination campaign launched on 2 November, targeting about 24 million children under five across 97 districts. The seven-day campaign was scheduled to run until 8 November.

On 3 November, two police officers were killed and a third was wounded when gunmen opened fire on a police team travelling to guard a vaccination team in Mohmand district. The officers were named as Zahoor and Arabi, and the wounded officer as Sabir. On 2 November, four polio workers were abducted in Tank district: Union Council Monitoring Officer Qadeer Khan, area in-charge Usman Khan and community vaccinators Umair and Sameer. Two members of a vaccination team abducted in the Azam Warsak area of Lower South Waziristan were later released.

Ninth polio case of 2026

The violence comes as Pakistan confirmed its ninth wild poliovirus case of the year. The National Emergency Operations Centre confirmed the case on 5 November in a seven-month-old child from Khyber district. Pakistan and Afghanistan remain the only two countries in the world where wild poliovirus transmission has never been interrupted.

No group has claimed responsibility for the Kurram abduction. Terror Monitor reported the abduction and the supervisor's release, citing police and local sources, and the Tank abductions earlier in the week were reported by The Express Tribune and Pakistan Today.