Pakistan School Shooting Leaves At Least 7 Dead, Including Teachers

Pakistan school shooting results in at least seven dead, including some teachers
The incident follows a similar attack where a teacher was gunned down on the road earlier in the day
The latest victims were believed to have been part of the country's minority Shia community

A Pakistan school shooting left at least seven people dead, including some teachers, in the Kurram district located in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

The incident was caused by a group of gunmen who stormed a government school on Thursday as students were taking their exams. Reports noted that the seven killed individuals were members of Pakistan's minority Shia community, which fighters frequently target.

Pakistan School Shooting

In a separate attack, suspects gunned down another teacher from the same school, who was a Sunni Muslim, on the road earlier in the day. Local Kurram police officer Abbas Ali said it was unclear if the two incidents were linked as no one had claimed responsibility for the attacks, as per Aljazeera.

In a statement, Ali said they were already looking into all the crimes and had no information on who could be the victims' killers. The prime minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, also condemned the killings of teachers and has ordered an investigation into the recent incidents.

The area of Islamabad is believed to contain a majority Shia population alongside Sunni Muslims. The former are often the targets of armed groups in the local Taliban movement.

One Aljazeera reporter, Kamal Hyder, said the circumstances of the latest attack continue to remain "mysterious." Few people were in the area to see what had transpired or know how many suspects were involved.

An education board chairwoman, Samina Altaf, whose district includes Tari Mangal, said that students inside the school were safe despite the attack. Former President Asif Ali Zardari expressed his regret over the attacks, calling the latest incident an act of terrorism in a Twitter post, according to BBC.

Potential Sectarian Motive

Kurram District police officer Muhammad Imran noted that out of the seven victims, five were schoolteachers, and three were school support, staff members. He also said that all of the victims were men. Imran said that the attack took place at around noon and he added that authorities are looking into a possible sectarian angle in the motive for the attack, said CNN.

The provincial chief minister's office issued a statement saying that the attack also involved a property dispute. Commissioner Saiful Islam said that it was not clear at the moment whether or not the second incident was a retaliatory attack from the incident that happened earlier in the day.

The local administration also decided to postpone the ongoing examinations in schools across the region until further notice. Government officials have also condemned the recent attacks on the country's teachers. In a statement, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari expressed his sorrow, demanding the arrest of the suspects.