PESHAWAR: A girls’ school in the Peshawar cantonment area was evacuated on Tuesday morning over a terror scare, which later turned out to be a hoax.

The incident occurred at the Shabbir Shaheed Girls’ Higher Secondary School located on Sunehri Masjid Road. It is the second such incident in few days.

Last Saturday, schools across the provincial capital were closed early over the terrorist attack rumours.

A staff member of the Sunehri Masjid Road school said panic spread at around 11:00am when some students began shouting and crying insisting they’d seen masked men enter the premises.

He said other students took no time in leaving their classrooms.

The staff member said the administration immediately informed the police about the matter and evacuated students.

He said some students left the premises in a hurry leaving books, bags and shoes behind.

Soon after learning about the terror scare, parents rushed to the school to know about their children’s safety.

The administration pacified them by saying the children had already been evacuated.

SHO of the West Cantonment police station Dost Mohammad told reporters that the school’s principal informed him over the telephone about the suspected entry of terrorists to the premises.

He said the school was located in a congested area and the side where the masked men were reportedly seen had no boundary wall.

The SHO said though CCTV cameras were installed on the school premises, the portion in question was not covered by them.

He said the police, Frontier Constabulary and security forces reached the school soon after learning about the entry of masked men there and thoroughly searched the premises.

The SHO said the security personnel also combed the nearby houses and didn’t find terrorists.

When contacted, Peshawar SSP (operations) Abbas Majeed Marwat said the school terror scare was a hoax.

He said there were 177 schools in Peshawar cantonment area and only nine or 10 of them were closed by the district administration for not meeting security guidelines on last Saturday, a move which triggered rumours about the possible terrorist attack on the premises.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2016