Pakistan university terrorist attack kills at least 19

Four gunmen killed in battle at Bacha Khan University in north-west Pakistan

January 20, 2016
Pakistan

A terrorist attack has killed at least 19 people and injured 50 at a university in north-west Pakistan.

Four attackers were reported to have been killed after opening fire on students and staff at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda.

Pakistani Taliban gunmen killed 130 students at a school in nearby Peshawar in 2014.

Intense gunfire and explosions were heard as security guards fought the attackers at Bacha Khan, the BBC reported.

Pakistani troops have also entered the campus after the attack, which began at about 9.30am local time.

Read more: When terrorists attack universities, they attack progress

Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper said the attack came as staff and students gathered for a poetry recital “to commemorate the death anniversary of the activist and leader whom the school is named after”.

Bacha Khan University, which was established in 2012 and has about 3,000 students, is named after a Pashtun independence activist who campaigned against British rule in the first half of the 20th century.

“The message of peace and universal brotherhood as practiced and preached by Abdul Ghaffar Khan (Bacha Khan) will be the motto of the university to steer the organization in the years ahead which would induct Pakistan into the comity of respectable nations of the world,” says the institution’s website.

john.morgan@tesglobal.com

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