Story highlights
An unidentified motorcyclist hurls a grenade at a school before firing shots, police say
A school principal is killed in the attack in Karachi's Baldia Town area, police say
Eight others, including a teacher and students at the school, are injured
The attack is the latest in a series targeting educators in Pakistan
A principal was killed and eight other people were injured in a grenade and gun attack on a school in the Pakistani city of Karachi, a police spokesman said Saturday.
An unidentified motorcyclist hurled the hand grenade at the private middle school in the Baldia Town area of Karachi before letting off a volley of shots, police spokesman Asif Nawaz Sheikh told CNN.
The school principal, named as Abdul Rasheed, was badly hurt and later died of his injuries in the hospital, the spokesman said.
The eight others injured included a teacher and students at the school, he said. They were transferred to the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Center and the Civil Hospital.
Caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso condemned what he called a cowardly attack on innocent children, the official Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) news agency reported.
The targeting of school children, including girls, reflected the brutality of the terrorists, he said, according to APP.
Khoso, the former chief justice who was sworn in as interim prime minister less than a week ago, directed the local administration to give all the help needed to the families affected.
The attack is only the latest to target educators in Pakistan.
Another teacher, Shahnaz Nazli, recently died in the country’s northwestern Khyber tribal district in recent days after she was shot by two men on a motorcycle as she made her way to the girls’ school where she taught
In January, five teachers were killed near the town of Swabi in the volatile northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the United Nations says.
In the wake of Nazli’s death, an online petition has been set up calling for Pakistan’s government to take a greater role in protecting girls and teachers to safely attend school.
First to sign it was Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was herself the subject of a vicious attack last October.
The 14-year-old was riding home in a school van in the Swat Valley, a Taliban stronghold, when masked men stopped the vehicle and shot her in the head and neck.
Malala, whose campaigning for girls’ education in Pakistan gained international attention in 2009, has made a good recovery since but is still receiving treatment for her injuries in Britain.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement Thursday through his spokesman condemning the recent attacks on teachers in Pakistan.
“In addition to the tragic loss of life, violence against teachers undermines confidence in education systems, traumatizes students, and discourages parents from sending children to school,” the statement said.
“Attacks on women teachers are particularly heinous because they disproportionately affect the girl students for whom they serve as role models.”
Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who serves as the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, has championed education issues in Pakistan, especially after the shooting of Malala.
In a piece written for CNN, he asked, “Can the world agree that 2013 will be the year when a girl’s right to education will finally be won – even in the most remote and once lawless corners of the globe?”