LANDI KOTAL, Dec 31: A young man was killed when militants blew up a government primary school in Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency on Sunday night.

Sources said that unidentified militants planted explosive material in the building of a primary school for girls in Bakarabad locality of Jamrud and detonated it with a remote control device at around midnight.

They said that the explosion damaged a major portion of the school building. A young man identified as Akhtar Munir, who was asleep inside the building, was killed in the explosion, sources added.

Officials of the education department said that after the fresh incident, the total number of schools destroyed in Khyber Agency during the last over three years reached 61.

“These are only reported cases,” they said. They added that the number could be higher as local elders and owners of the land, on which schools were constructed, were reluctant to report destruction of educational institutions as they feared suspension of privileges granted to them by the local political administration.

The Khyber Agency political administration had a year-and-half ago decided to hold responsible the owner of the property for destruction of a school and suspend salaries of all class IV employees, who usually belonged to the family of the landowner.

Meanwhile, nine persons were injured critically when a mortar shell hit a moving passenger pick-up in Kalanga area of Akkakhel in Bara on Monday. — Correspondent