Taliban blow up girls school in Pakistan - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

A government primary girls' school has been blown up by suspected Taliban insurgents in Shabqadar region of North West Pakistan. Sources said the five-room school was completely destroyed in the bomb blast, which was triggered off by the Taliban. Senior Police official Mohammad Riaz Khan confirmed the blast and told a foreign news agency that a nearby house was also damaged. There were no casualties in the blast, The Dawn reports. The militants efforts to deter girls from attending school in Pakistan are darkly reminiscent of the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan , which banned education for girls and forced most working women to return to their homes. In recent months, militants have blown up or burned down some 170 schools, most of them for girls, in the region where the Pakistani security forces are battling the extremists.