MILITANT forays in Peshawar, the provincial capital, have become quite frequent. The attack on three English-medium schools in the city on Monday by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan reminds one of the precedents in Swat, where terrorists in an attempt to enforce their retrogressive way of life, have blown up hundreds of schools. While one of the three schools was blown up with explosives, the Taliban torched school buses and ransacked offices, leaving four people severely injured. This spiral of violence to the settled areas is certainly alarming, but what sends a shiver down the spine is the inability of the law enforcing agencies to control the criminal activity. The incidents of kidnapping for ransom are also on the increase, with the militants picking up persons belonging to influential families to collect maximum funds for their campaign. This is also taking its toll on the economy of the region, with investors and the business community feeling their safety threatened. The prevailing incidents of crime flies in the face of the claim by the security forces that they had successfully carried out an operation near the Warsak Road against the lawbreakers. The schools that were targeted lie in the same area. Thus it is obvious that much more needs to be done to return peace to the city. Though the provincial government has come up with a new strategy that includes strengthening the police force, it remains to be seen how it would deal with the scourge.