PESHAWAR, April 16: A student was killed and another received critical injuries when suspected militants hurled a hand grenade at a private school in Chargano Kallay on the outskirts of provincial metropolis on Monday morning. Riaz Khan, the principal of Iqra Model School Charsadda Road, told local police that he was sitting in his office when he heard a huge blast. “I saw two students lying in a pool of blood when I rushed out of the office,” he added.

The injured students were shifted to Lady Reading Hospital but one of them identified as Ali Ijaz could not survive while Waqarullah was admitted to the hospital in critical condition.

The principal said that he had neither enmity nor anyone ever sent any kind of threat to the school. “A hand grenade was hurled at the school at 11:15am but it could not be ascertained if the assailants were on foot or riding a motorbike,” police said.

An official of Bomb Disposal Unit also confirmed that it was a hand grenade attack. It seemed that attackers wanted to create panic among the students and people of the area, he added.

A terrorism case against unidentified persons was registered at Khazana police station.

The official said that the area was close to Mohamed Agency and most of the militants had shifted to settled areas owing to military operations in tribal belt. Meanwhile, the law enforcers here on Monday defused a powerful bomb planted in agricultural fields at Mera Balarzai village.

The SHO of Badhber police station told Dawn that a family of Afridi tribe, having old enmity, informed police about the presence of a suspicious thing near its residence.

He said that personnel of Bomb Disposal Unit defused the bomb, which was packed in a canister. The bomb, he said, weighed about four kilograms. “We suspect that the bomb was planted by the complainant himself to get a terrorism case registered against his rivals,” the SHO said.

HASHISH SEIZED: Police claimed to have seized 57 kilograms of hashish and arrested an alleged smuggler in the limits of Banra Mani police station here on Monday.

An official said that police stopped a motorcar and recovered huge quantity of hashish from it. The driver who identified himself as Arif, a resident of Hazarkhwani village, was arrested, he added.