News of fresh gas attack on girls’ school in Iran sparks panic. Hundreds of students from 26 schools are being treated at the hospital. Since November, more than 1,000 schoolgirls have gone to hospital with symptoms of exposure to poisonous gas. Symptoms ranging from shortness of breath to fatigue and shivering have been seen among them.

Many people in Iran suspect that the gas was intentionally used to shut down girls’ schools. But the government is still not giving importance to such conspiracy theories. Iran’s Fars news agency reported that three people were arrested in connection with the school gas attack. But Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, whom President Raisi has tasked with finding the cause of the poisoning, said reports of the arrests were false.

The minister said that various foreign media, and various ‘mercenary groups’ have taken advantage of the situation and started a psychological war against Iran, spreading fear among people. Some students and parents suspect girls’ schools are being targeted as punishment for their participation in the recent mass anti-government protests over the death of a woman named Mahsa Amini in police custody.

According to various local media reports, 26 girls’ schools in five cities have been attacked by this new round of poisonous gas. Various video footage verified by the BBC Persian language department showed ambulances parked outside girls’ schools in the capital Tehran, the northwestern city of Ardabil and the western city of Kermanmah, and girls being treated in hospitals.

Schoolgirls in Tehran were seen wearing oxygen masks in hospital beds. Another video shows female students sitting on the sidewalk outside an elementary school in eastern Tehran. At that time, a mother stood near the school gate shouting ‘Where is my daughter?’ A man tells him, ‘They poisoned the girls with gas.’

The first case of gas poisoning at a school was in the Shiite holy city of Qom, north of Tehran. An investigation by the BBC Persian department found that 830 students, most of them girls, had been exposed to the poisonous gas as of Sunday. But a member of the Iranian parliament said 1,200 people had been infected in two cities – Qom and Bourouard. Almost all sufferers reported smelling rotten fish before becoming ill.

Ali Reza Monadi-Sefidan, chairman of the parliament’s standing committee on education, was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying on Tuesday that an investigation had identified the presence of nitrogen in the toxic gas. However, the Home Minister denied such news on Wednesday. A parent told the BBC that her daughter’s school in the Pardis suburb of Tehran had been infected on Tuesday.

On Sunday, Yunus Panahi, deputy minister of Iran’s health ministry, said it was “proven that some people want all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed”. But later he said, his words were misinterpreted.

In a video posted online on Wednesday, a woman can be heard saying that students at a primary school in the city of Kermanshah told her that after an explosion sounded at the school, the principal said some of the students had fallen ill. An ambulance was called to the school immediately. The woman said a student told her she feared they were being targeted for taking part in the protest.

There is a renewed public anger against the government in the case of school poisoning. Another video footage released on Wednesday showed a group of girls outside a school in Tehran chanting slogans – ‘Women, life, liberation.’ This slogan has been regularly heard in recent anti-government protests. Source: BBC.