Six-armed men who entered a school in the North-west Frontier Province in Pakistan and took about 25 students and a techer as hostages, released them after an ordeal of five-and-half hours following negotiations with the tribal leaders on Monday.
The incident took place when the gunmen were reported to be chased by the Police to release a district health official and his driver who were abducted by this gang which ran into a nearby school to safegurard themselves. In the meanwhile, the official and his driver escaped unhurt.
The gunmen took the children as hostages demanding that they should be given a safepassage failing which they would kill their hostages. Their demands were conceded and after releasing the hostages and surrendreing the weapons they had fleed from the place.
A spokesman of the Inerim Ministry temed the incident as an act by a group of criminals and it is not linked with terrorism or extremism. They are not militants but a group of criminals who indulged in routine aduction for ransom.
The incident aquired limelight because of the fact that the areas is known as a hotbed pro-taliban militancy and the hostage drama was the latest in a series of incidents in the North-West Frontier Province and the adjacent tribal areas.