Pakistani Taliban kills 20 in deadly university attack
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TALIBAN gunmen yesterday stormed a university in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 20 people and triggering an hours-long gunbattle with the army and police before the military declared that the assault in a town near the city of Peshawar was over.
Police said four attackers were also killed.
The atrocity brought back memories of the horrific 2014 Peshawar school attack that killed more than 150 people, mostly children.
Yesterday’s attack began shortly after Bacha Khan University opened for classes in the town of Charsadda, some 35 kilometers outside Peshawar, said Deputy Commissioner Tahir Zafar.
As police and soldiers rushed to the campus, the attackers traded gunfire with the troops and several explosions were heard from the university. The attackers were later contained inside two university blocks where the troops killed four attackers, the army said. A chemistry professor and a student were among those killed, said Zafar, adding that it was not initially clear how many attackers managed to penetrate the campus. Television footage showed a heavy military presence at the university, troops rushing in and people fleeing. Ambulances were at the scene and the wounded were taken to hospital.
The attackers entered the university compound by climbing over back walls before they made their way to the administration building and the male students’ dorms, police official Saeed Khan Wazir said.
A witness, botany teacher Mohammad Ishtiaq, said he jumped out from the second floor of the building when he heard gunshots and broke his leg. Two attackers were on the first floor and three on the ground floor, he said. The students ran in different directions, he said. “I locked myself in a washroom,” he said. “I jumped out when I saw one of the attackers coming toward me.”
Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif vowed to destroy the Taliban and other militants.
“We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism,” Sharif said.
A Taliban leader, Khalifa Umar Mansoor, claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call. Mansoor, who was the mastermind mind the Peshawar school attack, said a four-man Taliban team carried out the assault in Chasadda. He said it was in revenge for the scores of militants the Pakistani security forces have killed in recent months.
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