Pakistan observes mourning for university massacre victims

Gunmen stormed Bacha Khan University named af…

Meanwhile, universities in Pakistan’s Charsadda, Mardan and Swabi districts here have been shut indefinitely. Ambulances raced away, taking the wounded to hospitals.

Hussain was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest, just above his heart.

“He was holding a pistol in his hand”, he told AFP.

Wednesday’s assault, claimed by a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, bore a chilling resemblance to a December 2014 massacre at a school in nearby Peshawar that triggered a crackdown on militants that had been credited with a palpable improvement in security. He said meetings of four-nation group on Afghanistan will continue and all issues related to the reconciliation process involving the Afghan government and Taliban will be resolved within its framework. The attack coincided with the 28th anniversary of his death on January 20 1988.

The violence shows how vulnerable schools remain in Pakistan, where extremists have sought to prevent Western-style education, especially for girls.

At least 17 suspects, including five facilitators of the varsity attack, were arrested during search operations today in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, sources said.

Pakistan Senate (the upper house) has also passed a resolution to condemn the attack and demanded that the state adopt a zero tolerance policy for all forms of terrorism or extremist groups across the country.

Mr Sharif said in a statement from Switzerland, where he is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, that he was “personally monitoring” the situation. The attack also had an unmistakable political dimension for its targeting of peaceful political elements inside ethnic Pashtun society. One of those receiving treatment, guard Zakir Ali has said he was the first to respond and resist when the terrorists struck. “Their ability to strike back has been considerably destroyed”. After a year in which the Pakistani Taliban had finally seemed to be pushed to the margin, with attacks at their lowest pace in a decade, the new school assault renewed worries that the insurgency, even if diminished, has survived and retained its capacity for brutality.

“Now we will not kill the soldier in his cantonment, the lawyer in the court or the politician in parliament but in the places where they are prepared, the schools, the universities, the colleges that lay their foundation”, a bearded Mansoor said in the video, holding an admonishing finger aloft.

There’re around 64,000 educational institutions in the province alone, he said, and defended measures already taken.

Reports said schools in the area, 29 kilometers (18 miles) from the provincial capital of Peshawar, were open on Thursday. He said the university administration refused a proposal of setting up a police checkpoint on the campus, but that police patrols toured there twice a day.

Parents of the victims of the Peshawar attack accused the government of once more failing to keep their children safe.