QUETTA - Unidentified armed assailants opened fire at a private school located in Killi Shabo area of the city and injured four children on Wednesday.
According to police sources, unknown armed assailants riding on a motorbike opened fire on the main gate of the school located in Killi Shabo area of Quetta city and fled away. Consequently, four schoolchildren namely Naseema age 10 years, Gul Muhammad 12 years, Salman 9 years and Mahsooda Zafar age 10 years got injured.
The students received bullet injuries in their lower limbs and their condition is stable, Waseem Baig, spokesperson of the Civil Hospital Quetta where all the injured kids were shifted, told Xinhua. Police reached the site of incident, cordoned off the area and started searching suspects.
The incident happened when some unknown gunmen sprayed bullets at the students when they were leaving for their homes after attending the school. The militants fled the scene after the assault, and no group or individual has claimed the attack yet.
Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Kamal Khan strongly condemned the firing incident on private school Quetta and directed security forces to arrest the culprits.
In a statement, he also directed the health department to provide complete treatment facilities to the schoolchildren injured in the incident. Targeting innocent children and other innocent people was highly condemnable act, the chief minister said.
Home Minister Saleem Ahmed Khosa also condemned the attack and said those involved in the incident would not be spared. He said that restoring peace and security in the province was the top priority of the government.
In 2017, the Human Rights Watch in its report stated that attacks by the Taliban and other militant groups disrupted the education of hundreds of thousands of children, particularly girls, in Pakistan.
The 71-page report, “Dreams Turned into Nightmares: Attacks on Students, Teachers, and Schools in Pakistan,” based on 48 interviews with teachers, students, parents, and school administrators in Punjab, Sindh and KP, urged the government to take measures to make schools safe for students. Meanwhile, unknown armed assailants opened fire and shot injured a rickshaw driver near Hazara Town of Quetta on Wednesday.
According to police sources, unknown armed men riding a motorbike opened fire on rickshaw driver namely Rooh Allah and fled away as a result. The police reached the site of the incident and shifted the injured driver to a nearby hospital for medical aid.
Police have cordoned off the area and started searching the suspects.