Government says Taliban members among 15 people arrested over spate of girls' school poisonings in Takhar province.
The Afghan intelligence service said a girl accused of poisoning her school was among those arrested [Al Jazeera]
The Afghan government has arrested 15 people in connection with a spate of poisoning at girls' schools in the northeast of the country.
Girls from six schools in northern Takhar province have suffered from mass fainting episodes in as many weeks.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan intelligence service, has accused the Taliban of bribing school officials and at least one young girl of introducing the poison into the schools' drinking water.
NDS officials say the poisonings are part of an effort by the Taliban to scare families from sending their children to school, an accusation the group has refuted.
"We had directions from the president of Afghanistan to investigate. NDS was able to arrest 15 people, 12 of them Taliban" among those detained, said Lotfullah Mashal, NDS spokesman.
At a press conference on Wednesday, Mashal said among those arrested were the so-called Taliban shadow deputy governor of the salt-rich province, senior Taliban military commanders, a teacher, a school treasurer and his wife.
A school girl, paid 50,000 Afghanis, roughly $14,000 dollars, to poison her school's drinking water was also among the arrested, the NDS said.
'No security'
Noorjahan Akbar, co-founder of the Kabul-based organisation Young Women for Change, says the claims of infiltration by school officials highlights the need for security in the schools.
"In Afghanistan there is not just a single group that would carry out such attacks, more important than who actually conducted the attacks is the fact that there is no security in the schools," Akbar said.
"There needs to be a system in place so the girls and their parents are not pressured to give up their education to these groups" she told Al Jazeera.
Along with the Taliban, the intelligence service also accused the Jandullah and Mahazullah fronts of the "inhuman acts," which he said were motivated by foreign spy agencies.
'Mass hysteria'
Though the Taliban have issued two statements in as many weeks denying responsibility for the poisonings, Mashal said the NDS has proven documentation of the group's role.
"Because Taliban will have less credibility in the face of society, they don't claim responsibility ... Their aim is to promote fear among the people of Afghanistan; their main motivators are regional spy agencies", Mashal told reporters.
The Taliban have said they will punish any parties responsible for the poisonings.
Though the northern province has been at the centre of the wave of outbreaks in school sicknesses, there have also been recent reported cases in eastern Ghazni and Khost provinces.
The mid-May incident in Khost province saw nearly 400 schoolboys suffer from a similar poisoning attempt.
Prior to Wendesday's arrests, some Afghan officials had said the incidents could have been a case of mass hysteria.
Source: Agencies
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