The
university teaches over 3,000 students and was hosting an extra 600 visitors on
Wednesday for a poetry recital, according to its vice chancellor Fazal Rahim.
Explosions
were heard inside and TV pictures showed heavily armed security personnel
heading into the compounds as female students ran for their lives.
At the
university gates, distraught relatives of those being taught inside anxiously
waited for news.
The Taliban has claimed
responsibility for an attack in which at least 19 people died at a university in
Pakistan.
Four of the attackers are
known to have been killed at the campus building in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province, in the country's northwest.
Militants used the cover of
thick, wintry fog to scale the walls of the Bacha Khan University in the town of
Charsadda, about 18 miles (30km) from the city of Peshawar.
They then went into
university buildings and began to open fire on teachers and students in
classrooms.
Regional police chief Saeed
Wazir said most of the student victims shot dead at a hostel for boys on the
campus site.
"More than 30 others
including students, staff and security guards were wounded," he added, but
another official said the number killed could rise to as high as 40.
It is not known if the 19
included the four dead attackers, but at least one lecturer is among those who
lost their lives.
Witnesses said the teacher,
chemistry professor Dr Hamid, attempted to shoot back at the militants.
Geology student Zahoor
Ahmed said: "He was holding a pistol in his hand.
"Then I saw a bullet
hit him. I saw two militants were firing. I ran inside and then managed to flee
by jumping over the back wall."
Another told TV reporters:
"We saw three terrorists shouting, 'Allah is great!' and rushing towards
the stairs of our department.
"One student jumped
out of the classroom through the window. We never saw him get up."
"We saw (the chemistry
professor) fall down and as the terrorists entered the (registrar's) office we
ran away."
No comments:
Post a Comment