Pakistan observed a day of national mourning on Thursday for the 21 people killed when heavily armed gunmen stormed a university in the troubled northwest, exposing the failings in a national crackdown on extremism.
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“Armed groups in Pakistan must end all such affronts to humanity and commit publicly not to attack civilians”, said Champa Patel, interim South Asia director at Amnesty International.
The militants entered the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, early on Wednesday before opening fire on students and teachers in classrooms and hostels, two police officials said.
The university attack was grimly reminiscent of the December 2014 massacre at an army public school in nearby Peshawar that killed 150, mostly children.
Officials and witnesses said the assailants took advantage of a thick wintry fog that had blanketed the campus, impairing visibility.
“A big disaster has been averted due to police alertness, had the bomb exploded it could have killed and wounded scores of people”, Zeb said.
Abdul Majeed, a photojournalist who visited the scene, said the bodies of students lay in the dorm rooms.
All four attackers were killed – including two shot dead by snipers – according to the Pakistan army.
Officials at two hospitals in the city said a total of six injured people have been brought in from the university, four to the Lady Reading Hospital and two to a Charsadda district hospital. He expects the death toll of the innocent to rise.
There are fears that the remaining attacker or attackers are holding hostages within the campus grounds.
“I heard at least eight loud blasts inside the campus”, Muhammad said.
The statement signed off with a quote from Sharif.
“It is particularly appalling that these terrorists continue to attack educational institutions, targeting Pakistan’s future generations”, said a US State department spokesman. But later, the Pakistani Taliban’s chief spokesman denied the group was behind the incident.
The Pakistani Taliban, formally known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, are separate from the Taliban in Afghanistan but hold close ties to them and to al Qaeda. But analysts say many fighters have moved to cities or across the border into Afghanistan, and the insurgent group has continued to carry out attacks.
“We are not safe, even parents do not feel safe”, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his tweet: “Strongly condemn the terror attack at Bacha Khan University in Pakistan”.
Malala Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after the teenager was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 outside her school in the Swat Valley because of her vocal support for gender equality and education for girls.
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Former Jammu and Kashmir DGP M. M. Khajuria yesterday dubbed the terrorist attack on the Bacha Khan University a revenge against the Pakistan Army’s claims that they have eliminated Taliban from the country.
