Unidentified suspects torched a government primary school on Monday and detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) as a police team returned from the burnt school in Meragai in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Buner district.

No casualties were reported in either incident.

Israr Khan, the spokesperson for the Buner district police officer (DPO), told Dawn.com that both incidents happened in the hamlet of Meragai, located along the border of the Chargharzai area.

“A government primary school [for both girls and boys] was burned by unknown miscreants in the late night. Our police party was returning from the torched school after thoroughly inspecting it and as they passed the area, an IED went off on the rough village road connecting Pishlor Shangla to Gul Bandai, however no human loss or injury [was] reported,” the spokesman said.

He said both incidents were terrorist acts carried out by the banned militant Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan group as its movement was observed several times on the Shangla-Buner border. The Shangla DPO also confirmed these incidents to Dawn.com.

A local eyewitness from the village said locals heard an explosion a few minutes after the girls left their school and crossed the road.

Faisal Zeb Khan, a former MPA from the area, also said that a girls’ school was located in the area, but was not sure if the suspected terrorists were targeting the schoolgirls or the police. He maintained that the blast occurred after the schoolgirls passed the site.

The former lawmaker claimed the security situation along the border of Buner and Shangla was not good and added that his house was attacked several times by terrorists at night when he was an MPA before 2022.