PESHAWAR: All students were safely rescued after a girls school caught fire in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Haripur district on Monday, confirmed Chief Secretary of KP Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry.
Chaudhry said an electrical short circuit caused the blaze at Government Girls Higher Secondary School in Sirikot village. “The investigation is ongoing, with directives issued to establish foolproof protocols for handling such incidents in schools. The school should be made functional as soon as possible” stated Chaudhry. Taking notice of the incident, Chief Minister K-P Ali Amin Gandapur remarked that the rescue team responded swiftly and evacuated the students. Mobile footage from the site showed massive columns of smoke engulfing the school area. A crowd of locals also gathered outside the school.
“The damage to the school building from the fire should be immediately repaired so that educational activities can continue. All educational institutions should be inspected to prevent such accidents in the future,” said Gandapur.
The chief minister also sought a report from the Department of Education and the relevant district administration to elucidate the causes of the incident.
Earlier this month, a private school for girls in Shiwah Tehsil of North Waziristan was blown up and destroyed by explosives.
According to reports, the affected school was the only private school for girls in the region.
On May 17, suspected militants blew up another girls’ school in the South Waziristan district of K-P.
An official said that he was unaware of the motive behind the attack, but rued that some elements in the region were against girls’ education. –Agencies
