At least seven children were killed in a bomb explosion in a Koran school in northwestern Pakistan. About 70 others were wounded in the incident in Peshawar city, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Minister of Information Kamran Bangash said today. A stranger is suspected of having placed an explosive device in the Koran school, said a police officer.
A state of emergency has been declared in the city’s hospitals and the police and security forces have been placed on alert. Many of the injured boys between the ages of eight and 15 are in critical condition, said a hospital doctor. Around 100 children and young people are said to have been in the seminar building at the time of the explosion. TV pictures showed a field of rubble inside the Koran school. At first no one confessed to the attack.
Northwest Pakistan was quiet for a long time after a military offensive against Islamist terrorist groups in 2014. However, there were repeated attacks by Islamist extremists in the border region with Afghanistan. The attack is reminiscent of the attack by the Pakistani Taliban, who killed more than 150 people, mainly children and young people, in a school in Peshawar in 2014.
