Inquiry blames owner and government departments for Peshawar school collapse that killed 35

The building in Dir Colony went up in 2011 as a house and was never designed for a school, according to the findings reported by Nukta. City records held no building plan for it. The roof, wooden battens carrying burnt brick, gave way under the weight of students and furniture, and the first floor dropped onto the ground floor. Walls on the upper floor were unplastered cement block.

The report went to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, who told officials to get the provincial law department's view on its legal consequences, Arab News reported. His office said departments had been negligent but named no officials and announced no new arrests or penalties. The city's Eastern Zone office, the district administration and police each sent the committee separate reports.

Police arrested the owner after the collapse and filed a criminal case naming the owners, shareholders and the contractor who put up the building. It alleges they caused the deaths without intending to kill. Relatives of victims said they had earlier complained to the owner about rainwater leaking into classrooms. Kundi has ordered safety audits of every public and private school in the province and asked for a law that would let authorities close schools that fail. His office gave no update on those inspections.