Peshawar - A high school for girls in Pakistan's north-west
Swat district was largely destroyed after militants set it ablaze in
an overnight raid, police and officials said on Sunday.
Around 50 rebels entered the school in the conflict-hit Charbagh
area, located some 150 kilometres from the city of Peshawar, shortly
after Saturday's midnight and used petrol bombs to destroy the
library and nine other rooms in the building, the police said.
'The masked men directed me to remove all the copies of Koran (the
holy book of Islamic religion) and then set the school on fire,' a
watchman, Toti Gul, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The militants also planted homemade bombs in the school's science
laboratory; however, they did not go off and were later defused by a
bomb disposal squad, the watchman said.
A number of attacks on girls' schools have been reported in the
past and these were believed to be carried out by pro-Taliban
fighters commanded by a local radical cleric, Maulana Fazlullah.
Pakistani military launched a massive operation against the pro-
Taliban militants in the picturesque mountain district late last year
to flush Fazlullah's supporters out of several key towns and
villages.
However, now there is a lull in direct clashes between the rebels
and the military as the government has launched peace talks with the
insurgents.
'The militants were bold enough to stay at the school for at least
20 minutes to see the building burn out,' Gul said.
The attack came at a time when the annual examinations in the
whole of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) are in
progress, and it is feared that hundreds of girl students would not
be able to sit them, as the school was the only one in Charbagh.
Fazlullah used to broadcast radio transmissions through his
illegal FM stations based in Imam Dheri village, discouraging the
local population from educating girls and getting children immunized
against polio, saying the UN-sponsored vaccination drive aimed at
causing sexual impotence.
Authorities in Swat said though the government had reached a peace
agreement with the militants in the valley that was once a haven for
tourists, violence was again on the rise, particularly after the
release of a firebrand cleric detained in Peshwar.
Maulana Sufi Mohammed, who is the chief of a banned religious
organization - Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammedi (Movement for the
Enforcement of Mohammedan Law) - was released by the NWFP's new
political government that decided to negotiate with the militants,
instead of using military means.
Pakistan saw a surge in militancy and violence, especially against
its armed forces, after government troops cracked down on militants
holed up in the Red Mosque in capital Islamabad. More than 110 people
were killed in the commando raid.
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