Suspected hardline Islamic militants have blown up a girls’ school in the Wana Dubkot area of the South Waziristan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. Fortunately, no loss of life has been reported in the blast that occurred on May 17. However, the entire building of the school has been extensively damaged, according to the police.
This is the second such attack targeting educational institutions in Waziristan meant exclusively for girls. Last week also, on Wednesday (May 8), a girls’ school was blown up by unidentified attackers in the Shewa Tehsil area and no headway has been made till date to apprehend the culprits.
This targeted school was hugely popular among a vast section of society, as it had a reputation for providing quality education. One more reason why the attack is significant is because it was the only private educational facility meant exclusively for girls in the entire North Waziristan district.
Its reputation for delivering quality education made it a preferred choice among affluent parents who wanted to give a good education to their daughters. In this conservative tribal society, there are fewer opportunities available to girls and even these may be snuffed out now.
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The school targeted last Wednesday (May 8) was the only private school catering to girls in North Waziristan. The police said that the school in Shewa Tehsil was damaged as it was bombed in at night.
According to a report carried in The Express Tribune, a police officer said that armed and masked assailants overpowered the chowkidar on night duty. Thereafter, the assailants planted improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the school building and then triggered a powerful explosion. The chowkidar suffered injuries in the scuffle with unidentified Islamic hardline militants who are opposed to the education of girls.
According to local residents, the school had remained on the radar of Islamic militants for a long time and the police had been informed about these threats. Despite that, the law enforcement authorities had not initiated any preventive measures to help the school authorities.
This targeted school held significant importance as the sole private educational facility catering exclusively to girls in the entire North Waziristan district.
Its reputation for delivering quality education made it a preferred choice among parents.
On May 2, a week before the attack in Sheva Tehsil, unknown assailants set fire to a school in North Waziristan, according to the police. Between 10 to 15 armed persons entered the school by scaling its walls and used some incendiary materials to burn all the examination papers stored in the examination hall.
These papers had been collected from 23 examination centres under the Bannu Education Board, the police said.
Earlier in December, unidentified miscreants set ablaze school furniture valued at millions of rupees in a girls’ school located in the Bannu district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
A clear pattern is now discernible in the entire Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which is ruled by former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek Insaf. Incidentally, Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur is involved in a sort of showdown with Governor Faisal Karim Kundi of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Gandapur and Kundi both hail from Dera Ismail Khan area of the province.
CM Gandapur had not attended the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif a couple of months ago. Again, he had not attended Kundi’s swearing-in as KP Governor last month either. There have been some heated verbal exchanges between the Governor and the CM but they have not come face to face till now.
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