It has been a fearsome prologue to the prime ministerial grandstanding on 14 August, incidentally Pakistan’s Independence Day. The extremist challenge to women’s education in the country is a forbidding challenge to Imran Khan, the PM-in-waiting, a faint echo of the backwardness of 19th century British India.

The weekend outrage on 12 girls’ schools in Gilgit-Baltistan was not targeted against an individual, as was Malala Yousufzai, who was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for promoting girls’ education in the Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, incidentally the bastion of Imran Khan’s Tehreek-i-Insaf. The extremists have burned to the ground these foundational centres of learning, a testament to the fact that they are out of control in the province.

It is the degree of intolerance and antediluvian mores that will hopefully be accorded uppermost priority if the new Prime Minister’s intent of putting in place a Naya Pakistan is to attain fruition. While the persons responsible for committing this heinous act may or may not be tracked down soon, the scourge of extremism and its hideous impact on girls’ education will continue to persist unless the government has the will and the nerve to address the canker head on. The PML-N dispensation was ineffectual on this score; it failed to take tough decisions under the orchestrated National Action Plan (NAP) to rein in the terrorists.

Admittedly, an extremist party like the TLP drew a blank in the recent elections, but emerged as a formidable contender with 4.5 per cent of the national vote, not to forget that it is the third largest party in Lahore. The psephological detail reaffirms the spread of the extremist tentacles. Institutions that are the totems of girls’ education are under fire, and literally so. As Pakistan gears up for a transition, girl students were mercifully spared last Friday.

The burning of schools showcases a bonfire of sanity, that has been stoutly condemned, most notably by Malala Yousufzai and Imran Khan. Her Nobel prize (2014) has done but little to alter the mindset of the potential perpetrators, as backward as they are destructive. The “extremists”, she said, have shown that a “girl with a book” frightens them the most.

She has also called for the rebuilding of the damaged schools in Chilas town, about 130 kilometres from Gilgit ~ “We must rebuild these schools immediately, get the students back into their classrooms and show the world that every girl and boy has the right to learn.” It is fervently to be hoped that the new Pakistan government will share her perception of girls’ education, articulated by a certain robustness that is yet to be matched by the authorities ~ civilian, military or judicial. Imran Khan has condemned the arson as an “unacceptable act”, iterating that education for girls will be integral to Naya Pakistan. The challenge is awesome, and the new PM will be expected to walk the talk.