Militants torch schools as Pakistan extends winter vacations

FE Team | Published: December 31, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00

PESHAWAR, Dec 30 (agencies): Militants set fire to two primary schools in Pakistan's troubled northwest Tuesday as authorities extended winter holidays amid threats of attacks, officials said.
The incident comes two weeks after the massacre of 150 people at an army-run school in Peshawar, where 134 children were among the victims gunned down by heavily-armed Taliban militants.
Tuesday's pre-dawn arson attacks took place in two villages in the Kurram tribal district, where Taliban insurgent activity and violence between Shiite and Sunni Muslims are rife.
Amjad Ali Khan, the district's top administrative official, told AFP the attackers had doused furniture with petrol before setting it ablaze.
All the wooden benches and desks along with school records were destroyed and buildings were damaged, Khan said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility but Khan blamed "militants" for the latest attacks.
Meanwhile: A fire erupted in a busy market in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore Monday, killing at least 13 people and injuring four others, officials said.
An electrical short circuit in a four-storey building was the likely cause of the fire in Anarkali bazaar where electronic items, lighters, and sunglasses are manufactured and sold, officials said.
Rescue department spokesman Jam Sajjad confirmed the casualties and said that most of the deaths occurred due to suffocation.
Lahore is the second largest city of Pakistan and capital of politically influential wheat bowl Punjab province.
Meanwhile: A Pakistani court Tuesday remanded the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks in police custody for two days in a kidnapping case, a day after another court approved his release.
It is the latest round in a two-week tussle over the detention of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused over the terror siege in India's commercial capital. The affair has worsened already tense ties with India.