GHALANAI (Mohmand Agency), Sept 1: The only school for girls in the Lakaro tehsil’s Saagi area — being run on a self-help basis — has been closed down due to growing militancy in the tribal region.

The school’s closure has deprived hundreds of girls of education.

The school was set up in 2001 by a committee comprising tribal elders because there was no government school for girls in the area having a population of 9,000.

People under the influence of growing ‘Talibanisation’ in the agency have stopped sending their daughters to the school. They wanted women teachers in the school, said committee chairman Hazrat Khan Shinwari.

He said the committee had to shut down the school because it could not hire women teachers in a remote area like Saagi.

He said girls from adjoining villages also used to come to the school.

He regretted that neither the government nor any non-governmental organisation had offered help to the school administration in their hour of need. He demanded that the government appoint women teachers for the school in order to make it functional.