PESHAWAR, March 19: In a strange incident here on Wednesday, a young school student was handed a live hand grenade by an unidentified person but teachers’ timely action averted a disaster.

Teachers of a congested government primary school in the jurisdiction of the Phando police station, requesting anonymity, told Dawn that an unidentified motorcyclist had given a grenade to a Grade-4 student to “sell it for himself”. They said on seeing upon the explosive in his hands, other students came out of the classroom and cried: “bomb, bomb”.

“The local police were called to the school, who took away the explosive and did not register the case as our officer (assistant district education officer) was not in the favour to mention name of the school in the case,” they added.

The teachers said that it was a well-attended school where about 700 students were enrolled and the number of teachers was 17. They said if the grenade had exploded it would have caused many casualties.