Government school bombed in NW Pakistan

Peshawar, Jun 6 (PTI) Unknown miscreants bombed a government high school in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northwest Pakistan early Friday, local police said.

The miscreants blew up the government high school using explosives in Akbari village in the jurisdiction of the Gul Imam police station in Tank district, police sources said, adding, several rooms of the school collapsed due to the explosion.

No group has claimed responsibility for the school bombing as yet.

However, splinter groups of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) active in Tank district are against girls' education and usually target their schools.

According to data collected by local NGOs, over 450 schools in the province have been destroyed in such attacks over last decade, forcing students to either stop attending schools or attend classes next to ruined buildings or the rubble.

Pakistan witnessed multiple attacks on girls’ schools until 2019, especially in the Swat Valley and elsewhere in the northwest where the Pakistani Taliban long controlled the former tribal regions.

In 2012, the insurgents attacked Malala Yousafzai, a teenage student and advocate for the education of girls, who later went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. PTI AYZ NPK NPK