Friday, February 3, 2012

Militants blow up a girls' school in NW Pakistan

Location of Dera Ismail Khan District (highlig...
Image via Wikipedia
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Some unidentified militants have blown up a girls' school with a remote-controlled explosive device in Pakistan's northwest city of Dera Ismail Khan on Friday, local media reported.

According to the report of local TV channel Dunya, the incident took place at about 2 a.m. local time when an unknown number of militants tied up the watchman of a middle school and blasted the empty building with explosive material in Syadan area of Dera Ismail Khan, a town in Pakistan's northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The watchman got injured while the four-room school was completely destroyed in the blast, and about 10 kilograms of explosives were reportedly used in the attack.

This is the second time when militants targeted a school in the area. Earlier last year, over 40 kilograms of explosive material was fixed to the wall of a school but police successfully disposed it off.

Orthodox religious scholars in particular in rural areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are against the western style education for women, and there are only 978 middle schools for a population of over eight million women.

The literacy rate of northwest Pakistan (excluding Peshawar) is 22 percent, which is well below the nationwide rate of 56 percent. Among which 35.8 percent of men and 7.5 percent of women receive education in the area, compared to a nationwide 44 percent of women.

Critics believe that after the attempts of sabotaging education system by the militants, the responsible authorities are not making any notable efforts to rebuild the education structure in the effected places.

However, the authorities are of the view that they don't have enough amount of budget allocation for the uplift of education system in the effected areas as their immediate task is to maintain law and order situation and protect the lives of people in the troubled areas.
Enhanced by Zemanta

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Search this blog