LAKKI MARWAT - The district health department with the help of other stakeholders will devise a plan to overcome problems faced by polio teams in the field and make Union Council Level Polio Eradication Committees (UPECs) fully functional to eradicate the crippling disease from the district.
It was decided at a meeting of District Polio Eradication Committee held here on Wednesday. Additional Deputy Commissioner Ihsanullah Khan chaired the meeting while DHO Dr Nek Nawaz Khan, SDPO Bashar Khan Wazir, District Khateeb Maulana Abdul Wahab and officials of line departments were in the attendance.
The district health officer briefed the participants about the preparations the health department had made for the upcoming anti-polio drive. He told that over four hundred polio teams had been constituted to immunise over 1,50,000 children under the age of five against the epidemic.
The DHO informed that the issues raised in the meetings of union council polio eradication committees would be resolved on priority basis before the commencement of campaign.
Speaking at the meeting, Ihsanullah directed the health authorities to also make arrangements for administering oral polio vaccine to the children who would enter the district along with their parents from adjacent tribal areas.
He told that social mobilisers and union council campaign support persons should ensure coverage of refusal cases at all costs. He expressed concern over the high number of refusal cases and asked the health officials to launch concerted efforts to reduce such cases in the district.
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Lakki police arrest 23 outlaws

OUR STAFF REPORTER

LAKKI MARWAT Local police on Wednesday claimed to have demolished the hideouts of wanted criminals and arrested 23 outlaws, including five proclaimed offenders during a search and strike operation in different parts of the district.
An official said that the operation commanded by DPO Ismail Kharak was simultaneously launched in the border villages of Tajori town and in far remote rural localities of Kurrum Par Area.  He said that the law enforcers demolished the houses of two hardened criminals, including Rafiullah and Hukkum Khan in Wanda Aurangzeb and Abbasa villages.
"Besides three suspects were also held along with a kalakov rifle, a repeater, a pistol and a huge cache of ammunition from the area," he maintained.  Official told that police also captured three alleged drug traffickers in the border village of Tajori town and seized one kg heroin, one kg opium and 600 grams hashish from them.
He added that the cops assisted by commandos of Elite Force and Anti Terror Squad arrested five proclaimed offenders and twelve suspects during the operation. "The offenders were wanted by police in murder, attempted murder and other cases of heinous nature," he told.