Strange faces of ‘militancy’: Five students behind cracker attack outside school

School official claims that students had been defaulting on fees and were disallowed to sit for preliminary exams.

KARACHI: The police have made a major breakthrough in the recent bombings at one of The Educators school in North Nazimabad by apprehending five suspects, all students of the same school.

Panic had gripped the city following the three consecutive blasts, outside police station, school and college, within two hours on February 12. The law enforcement agencies believed the militant outfits were behind the attacks.



The police claim to have made a major breakthrough over the attack outside The Educators School, located in North Nazimabad's Block A.

"Those who were suspecting that the militant outfits were behind the school attack were wrong," claimed North Nazimabad SHO Shabbir Hussain while talking to The Express Tribune. "You will not believe that the school students were behind the attack."

Two brothers — Osama, a matric student and Zarar, a student of class 8 — are the key suspects in the case, said SHO Hussain. "Basically we recorded the statements of the five students, three of whom told us that they were not involved but testified to the involvement of Osama and Zarar."

Osama has also been identified as one of the students who were injured during the incident. The accused student confessed to his crime, said the police. It was not a bomb but a firecracker, said an officer while quoting Osama. The suspect added that firecracker injured him while he was trying to explode it.

"The remaining three students were also involved in the conspiracy but, the two brothers had played a vital role," explained District Central DIG Feroz Shah. "Their detention was enough punishment for them. We do not want to spoil the careers of these students." DIG Shah said that the investigator officer of the case will submit the report to the court tomorrow.

"It has been confirmed that this was not a case of terrorism and  usually in such cases, the investigation officer of the case make the case 'C class' by submitting the report to the court," explained an investigating officer.

Beaconhouse School System (BSS) spokesperson Tabraiz Bokhari confirmed the involvement of the five students in the attack. He further said that these students had been defaulting on fee since the last four months.

Speaking about the defaulting issue, Bokhari said the school rules allow the students to attend school but, not let them sit in the examinations if the fees has not been paid for past four months. "After four months of non-payment of fee, the students are not allowed to give internal exams at the schools," he informed.

These students had been harassing the principal of the school to let them sit for their preliminary examinations, Bokhari added.

The Block-A North Nazimabad branch of The Educators School is a franchise of BSS but has separate management. "The school's owner is responsible for the security and management issues," Bokhari explained.



This issue will be taken up to the management and the guidelines will be strictly reinforced in all the 600 branches of The Educators, said Bokhari. He denied that the franchise will not be closed because of the mistake of a few students.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2016.