Agencies
Islamabad
Gunmen have stormed a school in Pakistan’s volatile northwest, killing several teachers and gunning down another teacher from the school in a separate attack, according to officials. In Kurram, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan, a group of gunmen stormed a government school where students were taking exams on Thursday.
The seven teachers killed were members of Pakistan’s minority Shia community, frequently targeted by fighters. Another teacher from the same school, a Sunni Muslim, was gunned down on the road in a separate attack earlier in the day in Kurram, according to local police official Abbas Ali. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, and Ali said it was unclear if they were linked. “We are looking into all aspects, and so far, we have no idea who killed the teachers,” he said. The prime minister condemned the attacks on teachers and ordered a probe into the killings. Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said the “gruesome incident” took place in an area that has witnessed in the past sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni tribes. “Most of the teachers who were killed belonged to the Turi Shia tribe,” Hyder said. The tribal district contains a majority Shia population who armed groups often attack as part of the local Taliban movement. “This particular attack targeted the teachers while they were in the staffroom … They were there to conduct examinations throughout the province for lower secondary school,” he said.
The circumstances have remained “mysterious”, as not many people could see what had transpired, how many attackers were involved, or what their motives were, Hyder said. Abid Hussaini, a local police official, told Al Jazeera that authorities shifted seven bodies from the school to the hospital, but they cannot speculate what was behind the killing. A statement from the provincial chief minister’s office said the incident involved a property dispute, but the regional commissioner said sectarian antagonism appeared to be the cause.Following the incident, the local administration announced the postponement of ongoing examinations in local schools until further notice.
