Militancy: Attack on girls’ school kills policeman

School was closed at the time of the attack; five civilians injured.

PESHAWAR:

A bomb attack on a girls’ school in Mardan on Tuesday killed a policeman and wounded eight others, police said.

The remote-controlled bomb was planted at the outer wall of the government-run middle school. The bomb exploded after police arrived to investigate complaints about a suspicious plastic bag outside the school, which was closed at the time.

“One policeman was killed and eight other people including five civilians were wounded,” Zeeshan Haider, Mardan police chief, told AFP by telephone.

Three policemen were also wounded but no pupils were hurt. Haider said the target was the school. “The outer wall of the school was also destroyed,” he added.

Militants have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in recent years.

Early Tuesday, insurgents killed two anti-Taliban militia men on the outskirts of Peshawar.

Dilawar Khan, head of the anti-Taliban militia, said that Taliban killed his men and dumped their bodies in Matni, one of the northwestern areas where villagers have raised militias to fight militants.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23^rd, 2011.