KHAPLU: Police said unidentified suspects had set fire to a girls’ school in Pakistan’s northern Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) region in the wee hours of Tuesday, adding that the building would be reconstructed within a week to ensure girls their fundamental right to an education.
The torched school is located in Darel area of GB’s Diamer district, where militants burnt down at least 12 schools in 2018.
The remote district has a population of 300,000 and is home to the world’s ninth highest mountain peak, Nanga Parbat.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s torching of the school, officials said.
“Today, criminals burnt the Girls Middle School, Darel to ashes,” GB Chief Secretary Mohyuddin Ahmad Wani told Arab News.
“It is a very sad incident but [we] will not surrender to these miscreants. Our girls’ right to education is an inalienable right given by our religion and protected by the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.”
Wani said the local administration would rebuild the school and make it “fully functional” within a week.
A view of Girls Middle School, Darel after unidentified arsonists set fire to it in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan on November 8, 2022. (Photo: Ishtiaq Dareli/Facebook)
“I am mobilizing all resources for this purpose and declaring an emergency to fast-track the process. I am sending the best officers and engineers to the site and build a bigger and better school for our daughters,” he said.
“We will not surrender. Either we stand with our daughters or all of us government officials should go home.”
Wani denied local media reports that a watchman at the school had been kidnapped by the arsonists.
GB Parliamentary Secretary for Education Suraiya Zaman, who hails from Darel valley, said law enforcement agencies were present at the arson site and those responsible for the fire would be brought to justice.
“On an emergency basis, this school will be rebuilt within a week,” Zaman told Arab News. “We will leave no stone unturned for girls’ education.”
Diamer, a socially conservative, mountainous district comprising Darel, Tangir and Chilas tehsils, has a strong tribal system in different valleys, where local village councils make decisions and resolve disputes among people.
In August 2018, twelve schools — eight girls and four boys schools — were attacked by bombs and set on fire overnight in villages of Diamer district in GB, an area known for its scenic beauty but which has seen Taliban-linked attacks on foreign tourists and minority Shia Muslims.
In June 2013, militants killed 11 people, including 10 climbers and one local tourist guide, in an attack on the Nanga Parbat base camp. The climbers came from Ukraine, China, Slovakia, Lithuania and Nepal.
