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Terrorising English-speaking elite: Terrorists planning hostage-taking at private schools

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: The Interior Ministry has directed police to tighten security around English medium schools in the country after intelligence reports showed extremists planning hostage taking at private English medium schools, the BBC reported.

According to a report seen by the BBC, insurgents got this idea from the Beslan School siege in North Ossetia, Russia in which 335 people were killed - most of them children.

The report said the objective behind such an attempt was to stop the government from conducting operations like the one against Lal Mashjid and Jamia Hafsa.

Insurgents believe that moderate and secular elements in society would be undermined if children from well-offs families faced harm, the report said.

The Interior Ministry has directed the home secretaries, the Islamabad chief commissioner and police chiefs of all four provinces, Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas to tighten security around private schools after summer vacations. It also directed them to coordinate with the administrations of private schools to avoid any untoward incident.

In the wake of the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa operation, the Interior Ministry Crises Management Cell has warned the provinces of terrorism. The country has witnessed a surge in the number of suicide attacks and bomb blasts targeting armed forces and police.

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