Rumors of plot to sterilize Muslims spark killings

[NewsCaster]

After receiving threatening telephone calls warning they would regret helping the "infidel" campaign against polio, a group of woman, working on a UN-backed polio vaccination campaign, were shot and killed by gunmen a day after a similar slaying in Karachi. Ch4 Europe's Lindsey Hilsum reports. Warning: Some images maybe disturbing. By Mushtaq Yusufzai and Waj S. Khan, NBC NewsUpdated at 9:09 a.m. ET: PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan may be one of the world's three remaining polio-stricken countries but Sartaj Khan has decided that the government-sponsored vaccination campaign is much more sinister than it appears.

“These vaccines are meant to destroy our nation,” said Khan, a 42-year-old lawyer in the city of Peshawar. “The [polio] drops make men less manly, and make women more excited and less bashful. Our enemies want to wipe us out.”

Khan is not alone in the belief, propagated by extremist groups, that is gaining currency in the Pashtun belt of northwestern Pakistan: The government’s anti-polio campaign is a ruse by the Americans to sterilize or spy on Muslims.




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