On Monday, October 10, armed men attacked a school van in the Swat Valley neighborhood of Char Bagh, murdering the driver and injuring a student. The school van’s driver was the target of the gunmen, who fatally shot him while 10–11 students were in the cab at the time of the attack.
The militants have denied responsibility for the shooting that occurred on Monday, but the residents of Mingora, the city where the incident occurred, suspect they were behind it.
Malala Yousafzai, the world’s youngest Nobel laureate, also voiced her outrage over the armed attack on a van full of children in her village, where she was shot for attending school over a decade ago.
“I join the hundreds of others who are calling for peace in Swat. The attack on a school bus carrying children on Monday serves as a terrifying warning that our people cannot be forced into living in fear and supporting terrorists once more,” Malala said in a moving message on Twitter.
Moazam Jah Ansari, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, stated on Thursday that the two distinct acts of gun violence that occurred in the region were not acts of terrorism but rather personal retaliation.
At a news briefing on the incident in Swat, KP IGP stated, “The murder of the school-van driver on October 10 was a case of honor killing.”
According to him, a man murdered the sister’s husband in the case out of respect. One of the three suspects has been arrested, and the other two will shortly be in police custody.
IG Jah said that the firing incident in Lower Dir, which appeared to be directed toward children, was an armed dispute between two rival groups.
The police also stated that the attack only harmed the toddler who was seated in the front seat next to the driver. The entire valley protested in the streets in the aftermath of the incident because they thought the attack was a terrorist act.
The terrorist acts and the turmoil in the province, according to the protesters, are unbearable. The protesters chanted, “We want peace in the region and we will fight terrorism.”
