Kidnappers freed more than 250 students and teachers unharmed after being given safe passage by the authorities Monday from a school where they were holding the hostages.
Though the government insisted that the kidnappers were a gang of criminals, reports indicated that some of them were suspected militants. One of the kidnappers, Gul Jamil, who was killed in the shoot-out with police, was stated to be a militant belonging to Karak district. Groups of militants have been active in recent months in both Karak and Bannu districts. They have been blamed for some of the kidnappings in the two districts.
Brigadier (retired) Javed Iqbal Cheema said the kidnappers were criminals. Government officials in Bannu and Karak also conveyed the same impression. The remaining five kidnappers were initially given in the custody of a Jirga of elders in Bannu as part of a deal under which they got safe passage in return for releasing the hostages. Later, it was learnt that the kidnappers were allowed to go wherever they wanted.
The Jirga met at the home of former MMA MPA, Qari Gul Azim, who is again candidate for the NWFP Assembly on the JUI-F ticket. He and other members of the Jirga, including former MMA MNA from Karak, Maulana Shah Abdul Aziz, Mufti Aslam Noor and Maulana Jalaluddin, negotiated with the kidnappers and the government officials amid pressure from parents who were opposed to any kind of military or police action that could put their children at risk.
Children aged five to 10 and 11 were made hostage as they were all students of primary school. Relieved fathers and relations carried the exhausted and worried children in their hands and held them tightly to their chests when they were released. Some of the students and their parents cried when the hostage drama at the Government Primary School at Walizar village in Bannu’s Domel area came to an end.
The kidnappers had first freed a teacher to convey their demands. Later, they continued to hold 25 students and six teachers while negotiating with the jirga. A police party led by deputy superintendent of police, Sanaullah Khan, had chased the kidnappers and laid siege to the school. Sometime later, police officers and security personnel from Karak and Bannu reached the school in about a dozen vehicles. Pakistan Army also sent soldiers to the school. However, the soldiers and policemen had to withdraw to some distance from the school when negotiations reached a sensitive stage and preparations began for releasing the students and giving safe passage to the kidnappers.
The drama of the kidnapping had begun in the neighbouring Karak district. The kidnappers snatched Dr Hussain Jan, executive district officer (health), when he was going to his office from the hostel of the District Headquarters Hospital, Karak. His driver Razzaq too was abducted and the kidnappers dumped both in Dr Jan’s official vehicle bearing registration number X-91.
Police were informed about the incident and cops led by the station house officer, Karak, Iqbal Khattak, were sent to intercept the kidnappers. In the shoot-out between the cops and the kidnappers near the Government Postgraduate College, Karak, a police constable Mohammad Zahid was hit by a bullet in his hand. He was hospitalised and doctors said his condition was stable. One of the kidnappers, later identified as Gul Jamil, too was hit and killed in the exchange of fire.
Sensing danger, the kidnappers let go Dr Jan and his driver and drove out of Karak and into the limits of Bannu district. It was learnt that the kidnappers wanted to take Dr Jan to Miranshah, headquarters of North Waziristan. Taliban militants have been fighting the military in North Waziristan for the last few years, though nowadays a ceasefire is in place there.
It was in the jurisdiction of police station Domel that they barged into the school and barricaded themselves after taking the students and teachers hostage. Their demands, conveyed through a freed teacher, were safe passage and return of the body of their dead companion and two vehicles. It seemed all their demands were accepted. The body of slain kidnapper, Gul Jamil, was later dispatched to his village in Karak for burial.
The authorities were constrained not to take action against the barricaded kidnappers due to the pleas by the parents of the children held hostage in the school. The parents were begging the civil, police and military officials to give safe passage to the kidnappers for the sake of their children.
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