07:15 AM PST | Sat, 31 Jul, 2010 | Sha'aban 18, 1431
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Militants attack school in Khyber

Wednesday, 03 Mar, 2010
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Pakistan has seen a growth in religious conservatism in parts of the northwest and Balochistan. — Photo by AFP

PESHAWAR: Taliban militants blew up a boys' school and assailants threw grenades into a music event, killing a student, in separate incidents in north and southwest Pakistan, officials said Wednesday.

The boys' school attack took place overnight in the Spin Qabar area of Khyber, a lawless district that straddles the main supply line for Nato troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“All four rooms of the government boys' primary school were completely destroyed. Taliban are responsible,” Khyber's top administrative official Shafirillah Khan told AFP, adding that no one was hurt as the school was closed for the night.

Militants opposed to co-education and advocating sharia law have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in northwest Pakistan in recent years — including 16 last month.

In the southwestern province of Balochistan, unknown attackers hurled three grenades into a cultural show at an engineering university in Khuzdar district, some 300 kilometres south of the provincial capital Quetta.

One student was killed and 13 wounded, district police chief Nazir Ahmad Kurd told AFP.

“This was an attack on a cultural show while students were enjoying music,” he said.

Pakistan has seen a growth in religious conservatism in parts of the northwest and Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, with militants opposing music and films and instead advocating Islamic education.

No one claimed responsibility for either incident.



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