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A New Zealander has survived a kidnapping attempt in which a Taleban militant was killed and a guard was shot and wounded as gunmen stormed a Muslim school in Pakistan.
School principal Stephen Jonathon Rykers, who was born in Auckland and studied science at Auckland University, called his
father from north-western Pakistan after the armed attack on Sunday night to let him know he was safe.
Mr Rykers is principal of the Muslim Public School Surrani at Bannu, about 20km from the Afghan boarder and close to Waziristan where Osama bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders were said to have been hiding in 2005.
Last night, his father, Neville Rykers, who lives in Australia, said he had not been able to reach his son since his call and believed he might have gone into hiding.
"I think he's somewhere else in the country at the moment. I know he's not at the school, and one of the guys at the school is trying to get a telephone number for me."
Mr Rykers told his father that a group of five men, who he believed were Taleban members, arrived outside his school in a Nissan car.
"They put a ladder up and climbed over the wall. When the guy came over the wall, the security guard at Stephen's school shot him dead, but at the same time the guy returned the fire and wounded the guard. The others then fled."
Mr Rykers said his son didn't think the gunmen were trying to capture him specifically.
"He sounded quite clear that he thought it was just a Taleban attack because they have been attacking all sorts of things in the area."
But Pakistan's International News website said the raid was an attempt to kidnap Mr Rykers.
A police officer from the town, Mehrullah Khan, said the injured guard told investigators that five or six armed men broke into the school demanding to know where they could find the principal.
Another police officer, Ayub Khan, said: "We think it was an attempted kidnapping".
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also trying to reach the 46-year-old principal last night to confirm what happened and to see if he was safe or needed any help.
Mr Rykers told the Herald last night his son was a "pretty strong sort of a guy" who has relatives living in Auckland.
He went to Pakistan about 15 years ago to work as the principal of the school, but ended up buying a large share of it so he could improve the way things were done there.
"He's spent a lot of his life over there helping the kids and giving them an education."
He looked like a local. "He's got the moustache and the swarthy complexion and wears the kaftan and all that sort of stuff. He's been readily accepted for most of the time but this seems to have gone a bit haywire."
A brother, who didn't want to be named, said last night he had spoken briefly to Stephen by phone a few hours after the attack.
"He was obviously very upset. He talked a bit about what happened ... he was mostly concerned about the guard who was shot."
He said the family often worried about Stephen's safety.
"The family is worried he is up there doing what he's doing, but we respect his right to be doing it ... it's a selfless sort of life really."
He said his brother was the only Westerner in the province, but had integrated into Pakistan society well.
Bannu is in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, where Taleban militants and their Pakistani allies are asserting ever-greater control.
- additional reporting Maggie McNaughton
