PESHAWAR: A district and sessions judge who was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen from Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Saturday has been recovered, a senior police official and a relative of the judge both confirmed on Monday.

Unidentified gunmen abducted Shakirullah Marwat near the dusty town of Bagwal on Saturday while he was traveling from his hometown city of Tank toward the Dera Ismail Khan district in KP. The incident alarmed Pakistan’s legal community and coincides with a resurgence of militant violence in KP and Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, following the Pakistani Taliban or Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) termination of a fragile truce with Islamabad in Nov. 2022.

Security forces and police conducted two separate operations in Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts “soon” after Marwat was abducted and killed six militants in the exchange, Regional Police Officer (RPO) Nasir Hussain Satti said. 

“Police and security forces were jolted into action the moment the judge was picked up,” Satti told Arab News. “The forces choked all entry and exit points of the two restive districts, leaving no room for kidnappers to keep the judge with them. Finally, they had to set him free,” he added.

Satti said the judge had been recovered without paying ransom money. “Absolutely not, the judge was recovered without paying any ransom or making any deal with the abductors,” he said. 

Farooq Khan, Marwat’s relative who is also a lawyer, confirmed the judge reached home safely on Sunday night. 

“Thank God Shakirullah has reached home safely,” he told Arab News. 

In a brief video message that was released on Sunday, the judge said he was kidnapped by the Pakistani Taliban and that his release was impossible if his kidnappers’ demands were not met. He was speaking from an undisclosed location and it wasn’t clear whether he was talking under duress. 

“I request the federal and provincial governments, the honorable chief justice of Peshawar High Court, the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the government of Pakistan and the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan to accept their (Taliban) demands and ensure my release,” Marwat had said.

Shah Fahad Ansari, a high court advocate and divisional president for the Peoples Lawyers’ Forum, said the legal fraternity appreciated the swift response by police and security forces to ensure the judge’s safe recovery.

“But we demand the authorities adopt all measures to ensure security in the province and discourage recurrence of these kinds of incidents in the future,” Ansari said.

Earlier this month, an attack in Dera Ismail Khan resulted in the death of six people, including five customs department officials, with another person wounded when gunmen targeted their vehicle.

The recent weeks have also seen attacks on police officials in KP.

Earlier this month, a policeman was shot dead in North Waziristan. In related incidents, an official from the provincial counterterrorism department and a senior cleric affiliated with the Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam religious party were fatally shot in target killings in the area.

While no group has claimed responsibility for these attacks, suspicion has fallen on the TTP, whose leadership is said to be based in neighboring Afghanistan.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities kicked off a week-long campaign to vaccinate 24 million children against poliovirus in 91 selected districts on Monday, the state-run Radio Pakistan reported, as Islamabad tries to eliminate the potentially fatal disease from the country. 

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two countries in the world where the poliovirus, which causes paralysis and can be a life-threatening disease, is endemic.

“The campaign is being held in ten districts of Punjab, 24 districts of Sindh, 26 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), 30 districts of Balochistan, and the federal capital Islamabad,” Radio Pakistan said, adding that 24 million children under the age of five would be administered the vaccine in these districts. 

Dr. Malik Mukhtar Ahmed Bharath, coordinator to the prime minister on National Health Services, said the government is committed to ensuring that all children are protected from poliovirus. 

“Poliovirus has been detected in multiple sewage samples in the country in recent months which means this virus remains a serious threat to children’s wellbeing,” Dr. Bharat was quoted as saying by the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) on Sunday. 

He said the only way to protect children from the disease is to vaccinate them against it. “We are sending polio teams to your homes, so make sure to open your door to vaccinators and get your child vaccinated,” he added. 

Dr. Shahzad Baig, coordinator of the National Emergency Operations Center for Polio Eradication described it as a “critical campaign” being held in districts with a high risk of poliovirus spread. 

“We have detected the virus in over 31 districts this year, which is why we are continuing to implement regular vaccination campaigns in all high-risk districts to ensure that children have the immunity to fight off polio infection,” he said. 

Pakistan’s efforts to contain polio have often been met with opposition, especially in the country’s northwestern KP province, where militants have carried out attacks against vaccinators and the security teams guarding them. 

Many believe in the conspiracy theory that polio vaccines are part of a plot by Western outsiders to sterilize Pakistan’s population.

Pakistani masses’ doubts regarding polio campaigns were exacerbated in 2011 when the US Central Intelligence Agency set up a fake hepatitis vaccination program to gather intelligence on former Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.