A Catholic-run girls’ school in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier province has reopened after a weeklong closure prompted by threats from Islamic militants.

While the girls’ school was closed, a bomb exploded in another Catholic school in the province.

The Public High School for Girls in Swat reopened on September 17, after a letter warned the Apostolic Carmelite Sisters running the school to close the “factory of Christians” or face suicide attacks.

When the school reopened, seven police officers were deployed to guard it as about half of its 950 students showed up for class. All but three of the school’s teachers are women.

The group Jan Nisaran-e-Islam sent the letter to the Swat Press Club, and local newspapers published it on September 9. The letter accused the nuns of converting the mostly Muslim students to Christianity and involving them in illicit activities.

The two-page letter accused “insolent Muslims” of sending their daughters to the school to make them foreigners. It said the nuns take the girls to a Church behind the school office at night and teach them to pray in “their own fashion.”

It said the nuns involve the girls in adultery, and the girls wear only “a two-inch sash.” It alleged the girls are made “accomplices in Internet chatting” and are compelled to watch nude pictures under the “veil of computer classes”.

The letter demanded the expulsion of Christian and male staff and insisted on the burqa, clothing covering the whole body except the eyes and hands, as the school uniform.

Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi said that when he met with the Swat district co-ordination officer, he demanded protection for the convent and the school. Bishop Lobo said the threat was an effort to seize control of the school.

“It seems that Islamists are trying to drive away the nuns,” but such threats have not targeted just the Catholic school, the bishop said.

“This is not Islamisation but extremism in the name of religion,” he added.

- Courtesy of The Universe