Taliban gunmen stormed a university in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least 21 people and triggering an hour-long gunbattle with the Army and the police before the military declared the assault in a town near the city of Peshawar was over. Four militants were also killed as security forces retaliated, bringing the death toll to 25 in the grisly attack. Taliban has claimed responsibility for the deadly attack.
The gunmen entered the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, some 50 km southwest of Peshawar in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, and opened fire on students and teachers in classrooms and hostels, police said.
A poetic symposium was in progress in the campus to mark the death anniversary of the Frontier Gandhi, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, also known as Bacha Khan. There were about 3,000 students and 600 guests on the campus when the attack took place, Vice Chancellor of the university Dr Fazal Rahim said.
The victims were shot in the head or chest. Images from inside the university show a pool of blood on the floor of a dormitory and the charred corpses of two alleged militants lying on a staircase.
The attackers entered the university compound by climbing over back walls and shooting at a security guard before they made their way to the administration building and the male students’ dorms, police official Saeed Khan Wazir said.
Wednesday’s attack comes a little over a year after Taliban militants massacred over 150 people, mostly students, in an assault on an Army-run school in Peshawar in December, 2014.
As police and soldiers rushed to the campus, the attackers traded gunfire with the troops and several explosions were heard from the area of the university. The attackers were later contained inside two university blocks where the troops killed four attackers, the Army said.
Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid visited university and told the media that the operation launched by security forces to clear the campus is over.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to fight to the end and destroy the Taliban and other militants. “We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland,” Sharif said in a statement.
A Taliban leader, Khalifa Umar Mansoor, claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack in a phone call to The Associated Press from an undisclosed location.
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.
An emergency has been declared in all hospitals in the town. All schools have been closed in the area.
Army chief Gen Raheel Sharif rushed to the spot along with Corps Commander Peshawar and other top military officials where he was briefed about the operation.
However, a spokesman for the main Taliban faction in Pakistan later disowned the group behind Wednesday’s attack, describing the assault as “un-Islamic.” Mohammad Khurasani also denied earlier reports that he had endorsed Mansoor’s claim and said that those who carried out such attacks would be tried before an Islamic, or Sharia court.
Such statements from among the Taliban are not uncommon since the group has many loosely linked factions and is indicative of the deep divisions and splits among the insurgents.
Khurasani also said the Taliban “consider the students in non-military institutions the future of our jehad movement” and would not kill potential future followers. He insisted Mullah Fazlullah, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, had nothing to do with the assault.