PESHAWAR: Eleven school teachers, who were abducted last week by the militants during the anti-polio campaign from a private school in Sipah area of Bara in Khyber agency, have been released.
The teachers were not directly involved in the polio vaccination campaign; rather they voluntarily facilitated the team which was administering the polio vaccines at their private school named as Hira Public School situated in Sipah area.
On November 21, the kidnappers arrived at the School and took the teachers away, just after polio vaccination team had left the school.
According to the reports, the kidnappers had taken the teachers to an area where militant leader Mangal Bagh and his Taliban-affiliated group Lashkar-e-Islam had control.
The reports said that the teachers were freed after a local jirga went to the militants for their release. Later, the militants agreed to free all the teachers.
However, the militants put a condition that the teachers would only be released if the government stopped sending polio vaccination teams to the area.
Pakistan consistently is witnessing such incidents of attacking polio vaccination workers by the militants as later deem people involved in polio vaccination as being Western spies or part of a plot to sterilise Muslims.
