Key Points
- Iran's police say 110 people have been arrested over links to toxic gas poisoning in girls' schools.
- No one has been identified yet, nor has a motive been revealed over the incidents that have spanned three months.
- It's estimated thousands of girls have been affected by the poisonings, with some hospitalised.
Iranian police say 110 suspects have been arrested in connection with the suspected .
Students say they have been sickened by noxious fumes in incidents dating back to November that have mainly occurred in girls' schools.
Authorities say they are investigating but there has been no word on who might be behind the incidents or what - if any - chemicals have been used.
Unlike neighbouring Afghanistan, Iran has no history of authorities targeting women's education, even during the height of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
There have been no fatalities, and some officials have suggested that mass hysteria might have played a role.
General Saeed Montazerolmehdi, the police spokesman, announced the arrests in remarks carried by Iranian media.
He also said police had confiscated thousands of stink bomb toys, indicating that some of the alleged attacks might have been copycat pranks.
Others appear to be more serious, with hundreds of students hospitalised, according to local media reports and rights groups.
Emergency services attended to reported poisoning cases at a primary school in east Tehran last week. Source: AAP / SalamPix/ABACA/PA/Alamy
It has also targeted reporters covering the poisonings even as officials have provided few details about what is happening.
An MP on a government panel investigating the incidents said earlier this month that as many as 5,000 students have complained of being sickened in 230 schools across 25 provinces.
Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the recent protests, has put the number at more than 7,000 students.
The World Health Organisation documented what might have been a similar phenomenon in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2012, when hundreds of girls across the country complained of strange smells and poisoning.
No evidence was found to support the suspicions and the WHO said it appeared to be a "mass psychogenic illness".
