A Christian school in Pakistan became the latest victim of the Charlie Hebdo fall-out after hundreds of Muslims stormed the school and demanded that it be closed down.
The Morning Star News reported that around 300 Muslim protesters from local schools and colleges forcibly entered the premises of Panel High School for Boys in Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. They first jumped over its outer walls, then forced open the gates.
Principal Fredrick Farhan Das told Morning Star News by phone that the mob destroyed their windows as they demanded that the Christian school be immediately shut down.
It resulted in a stampede that injured at least four students of the school.
"Our students were on the school grounds during lunch hour, around 11 a.m., when suddenly hundreds of students forced their way into the premises," he said. "We had no prior information about the protest, and neither did the district administration nor police authorities alert us about the route of the protest."
Das noted that there were three police officers deployed at the school, but says they merely looked on as the mob ransacked the school and used guns and stones to break the classroom windows, all the while shouting anti-Christian slogans.
"Our first priority was to secure our panicked female staff and the students amidst fears that the protestors could open fire on them and cause injuries that could be fatal," Das said. "The chaotic situation resulted in injuries to four students, but fortunately they are fine."
There are over 1,800 students enrolled at the Panel High School, which has a faculty of 100 teachers, most of them women. The school is administered by the Church of Pakistan Diocese of Peshawar.
Das holds the provincial government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), the district administration and local police responsible for the lapses that resulted in the attack on their school.
"It is the district administration and police's job to ensure security at schools, especially after the attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, yet hundreds of protestors, some of them armed with weapons, were allowed to march on the roads with absolute impunity," he said.
Twelve people were killed when terrorists attacked French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last month after it had earlier mocked Islam's Prophet Muhammad in cartoon drawings. The publication responded by printing another Propher Muhammad cartoon on its front cover in the first edition after the attack, triggering violent protests in some countries. Niger was especially badly hit, with dozens of churches being badly damaged.
