Pakistan university attack mastermind vows more assaults

Among the victims was assistant chemistry professor Syed Hamid Husain who was lauded for challenging the gunmen and firing at them with his pistol while his terrified students raced for cover.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Inspector General of Police (IGP) Nasir Khan Durrani also visited the LRH in Peshawar and inquired after the injured victims of the attack.

“They fired directly at” the professor, sociology student Muhammad Daud said, describing Husain as “a real gentleman and a respectable teacher”. The assault was claimed by a Taliban faction, but was branded “un-Islamic” by the group’s leadership in Pakistan, which vowed to hunt down those responsible.

Police said earlier that other attackers were believed to be at large on the second and third floors of the campus buildings, according to Reuters.

Security forces went from block to block trying to locate the gun-wielding terrorists.

Pakistan media reports that 50 have been injured in the terror attack and have been shifted to Charsadda District HQ hospital.

The armed men who carried out the deadly armed attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, north-western Pakistan, violated the central principle of worldwide humanitarian law by deliberately targeting civilians in what appears to be a war crime, says Amnesty global.

“Initial investigations reveal that attackers were in contact with their handlers reportedly operating from Afghanistan”, Khalilullah said during the weekly briefing here in Islamabad. Ibrahim said she like many others ran towards the university buses parked in the vicinity.

“We are determined that the young generation of Pakistan will not bow down to the terrorists”, PSB director Akhtar Nawaz said.

Malik also tweeted, “I salute the courageous people of KPK who have always demonstrated courage in the most hard moments”.

The university, in Charsadda, near the border with Afghanistan, is less than 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Army Public School and Degree College in Peshawar, site of a December 2014 attack by militants from Pakistan Taliban.

While Taliban’s official spokesman Mohammad Khorasani had denied the group’s role hours after the attack on the university, the commander of its faction Umar Mansoor said his fighters had targeted the campus because it prepared students to join the government and army.

Marwat, the vice chancellor, said security forces alone could not keep students safe, saying it required a move away from an extreme interpretation of Islam.