Roundup: Afghan blast wounds 3 children, alleged poisoning sickens 35 others

The ongoing violent incidents and militancy have not spared children and injured three school children and send nearly three dozen others to hospital in the relatively peaceful western region of the conflict-ridden Afghanistan on Monday.

In the first violent incident which occurred in Muqar district of the western Badghis province, three children sustained injuries, provincial police chief Wali Jan Sarhadi said. "A mine planted on a road obviously to target security forces vehicles went off this morning, injuring three innocent school children," Sarhadi told Xinhua.

The second gas attack which happened in the neighboring Herat province, sickened 35 pupils of a girl school, provincial police chief Abdul Majid Rozi said.

"All the 35 poisoned girls have been taken to hospitals for medical treatment," Rozi told reporters.

He also added that a commission has been constituted to investigate the case and identify those behind the heinous crime.

Shafiq Shirzai, spokesman for Herat regional hospital, confirmed that the incident occurred in Nawen Primary Girl School in Anjil district Monday morning and the affected pupils were recovering after medical treatment.

This is the sixth case over the past one week that girl schools have been mysteriously attacked by spraying unknown gas, which make the students feel dizzy and vomiting.

Since last Monday, primary girl schools have been mysteriously attacked and some 400 students have been taken to hospitals, according to hospital sources.

Some doctors believed that the insurgents were possibly using a kind of tablet that could produce poison gas and put it in classrooms by their men.

No group has claimed of responsibility for such attacks.

However, both the officials and locals blamed the Taliban for the mysterious attacks on girl schools. The Taliban militants, who are against education for girls, are believed to intimidate the parents from sending their daughters to school. Endi