A government-run Islamiyya primary school was attacked with home-made explosives in Kano on Wednesday evening, damaging some classrooms, in the first such incident affecting an Islamic institution since wave of attacks gripped parts of the North.Another public primary school was also hit same night by unknown gunmen.The newly-built Islamiyya school at Farawa was attacked around sunset when Muslims were preparing for the Maghrib prayers, residents said.They said they heard loud blasts from within the school premises, followed by gunfire, sparking chaos as people run back into their homes.'We heard the sound of three powerful blasts which were followed by gunshots as people were heading for the mosques,' a resident said, asking not to be named.'Later in the evening we learnt that it was the newly-constructed Islamiyya school which was about to be commissioned by the state government that was attacked.'The blasts left gaping holes in the classroom buildings and tore off part of the green roofing which has the 'Kwankwasiyya' inscription emblazoned on it in white colour.Frontage and back sides of at least three classrooms in the one-storey building were heavily damaged.But it seemed the explosions did not ignite fires.Kano has seen sporadic gun and bomb attacks since the January 20 major strike blamed on the Boko Haram sect, mainly targeting security personnel and institutions. The Bayero University was also attacked last month.Residents of Farawa area said Wednesday's Islamiyya school attack was strange because the sect blamed for previous attacks claims to be propagating wider application of Islamic law.'We find the attack on Islamic school very strange and disturbing. We heard stories of attacks on formal educational institutions in places like Maiduguri and elsewhere but we have never heard of anything like an attack on Islamic schools by these people. The government must truly do something to bring this situation to an end,' he said.Daily Trust learnt yesterday that security personnel found two home-made explosives that did not go off at the school premises.The other school that was attacked in Kano on Wednesday was the newly-built Ja'en Special Primary School, located at a remote part of Sharada Industrial Estate. The attack happened around midnight, residents said.'The deafening sounds of the explosives woke all of us up around midnight. We did not know what happened until in the morning when pupils who reported to the school were turned back,' a resident told Daily Trust.The one-story building, which also bears the Kwankwasiyya political slogan on its roof, had its ceilings and doors damaged by the blasts.The impact of the blasts also completely shattered the windscreens and side glasses of a grey-coloured Volkswagen salon car that was parked in front of the structure.Our reporter could not gain entry into the school compound because the gates had been locked by the school's security men.'We stopped our children from going to the school because we are not certain about their safety,' a parent of one of the pupils in the school told our correspondent.Sources said some unexploded bombs similar to those found at the school in Farawa had been evacuated by security personnel.Nobody was killed in the two incidents.Confirming the attacks, a spokesman for the police in Kano, Magaji Musa Majiya, said, 'One unexploded device was found at Ja'en primary school while two others were found at the Farawa school by our operatives. They had all been demobilised.'He added: 'No arrests were made and no lives were lost in both incidents.'There was no immediate reaction from the Kano State government. Education commissioner, Alhaji Faruk Iya, did not answer calls made to him by our reporter to seek for his comments on the two incidents.
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