Eight teachers gunned down in Kurram

Armed men attack school after a man shot dead on a road near Parachinar

PARACHINAR:

Six schoolteachers were killed in a shooting at a school in the Kurram district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) shortly after another teacher was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in the upper Kurram area, officials and medics said on Thrusday.

Police sources said that Muhammad Sharif was killed after unknown persons opened fire on a moving vehicle on Solozan Road. After the attack, armed men entered the Teri Mangal High School and killed six schoolteachers and a staff member.

The deceased teachers were identified as Mir Hussain, Jawad Hussain, Naveed Hussain, Jawad Ali, Muhammad Ali and Ali Hussain, all of whom belonging to the Turi Bangash tribe. The teachers were performing examination duties at that time.

The teachers were inside the staffroom when unknown assailants opened fire on them. “The students inside the examination centre remained safe,” Kohat’s Education Board Chairperson Samina Altaf said.

“Board examinations have been deferred for an indefinite period in Parachinar for now,” Altaf said, adding that the examinations in the rest of Kurram district and areas would be held as per schedule.

Emergency was declared at the hospitals across the district after the killing. Authorities closed schools in Parachinar as well as the transportation routes because of security concerns, local administration officials said.

Contradictory accounts were given about the motive for the killings. A statement from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister’s office said it involved a property dispute, but the regional commissioner said sectarian antagonism appeared to be the cause.

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“It is not clear whether the second incident [at the school] was a reaction to the first one,” Commissioner Saiful Islam, told Reuters, adding security has been heightened in the area, as the situation became tense.

Overseas Pakistanis Minister Sajid Hussain Turi, Anjuman-i-Hussainia’s Secretary Inayat Hussain and Syed Tajammul Hussain, president of the Tehreek-i-Hussaini condemned the attacks on the teachers.

President Dr Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif strongly condemned the killing of eight school teachers in Parachinar and Upper Kurram. “The attack on teachers by the enemies of education is condemnable,’ Alvi said.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said he had sought a report from the interior secretary, and assured that the perpetrators would be punished. “The killing of teachers on examination duty is a very heinous act,” he said.

In their separate statements on Twitter, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Co-Chairman Asif Zardari condemned incident and demanded an “immediate and complete investigation of the matter by police and the administration”.

Caretaker Punjab Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi stated that the firing incident in the school on the teachers was highly heart-rending. He underscored that all sympathies of the Punjab government rest with the heirs of the deceased teachers.

(WITH INPUT FROM AGENCIES)