BAJAUR: A government schoolteacher was killed in a roadside blast in Mamond tehsil here on Wednesday morning.

Rescue 1122 personnel and local residents said the incident occurred in Badan area at about 8am.

A bomb planted along the road exploded in the area, leaving Mufti Shafiullah, 42, seriously injured, the villagers said, adding that the victim was on the way to school when the blast occurred.

They said that the victim was an Arabic teacher in the government high school, Badan.

People shifted him to the District Headquarters Hospital, Khar, where the doctors pronounced him dead, a rescue official said.

The residents said that Shafiullah was also an activist of JUI-F. No one claimed responsibility for the incident.

The police believed that it could be an act of terrorism.

District police officer Abdul Samad Khan said that they had launched an investigation into the incident to ascertain the cause behind the blast.

The preliminary investigation, however, suggests that it may be an act of terrorism because such incidents had also occurred in the same area in the past, he said, adding an official of former Bajaur Levies Force was killed in a blast in the same area some five years ago.

Mr Samad said that an FIR had been registered against the unidentified assailants, adding that a search operation was also under way to trace them.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2022