Pakistan Mourns Deadly University Massacre Victims
KABUL: (MEP) Pakistanis buried their dead and observed a day of national mourning Thursday for the 21 people killed after heavily-armed gunmen stormed a university in the troubled northwest, gunning down students and teachers and spreading terror as well as exposing the failings in a national crackdown on extremism.
Flags will fly at half-mast on all government buildings inside and outside the country, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s office said, while a prayer ceremony will be held in the capital Islamabad.
Sharif has vowed a “ruthless” response to the massacre and ordered security forces to hunt those behind Wednesday’s attack on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, where students were targeted with grenades and automatic weapons.
Armed police, some perched on the roofs of buildings, were still deployed Thursday morning at the Bacha Khan University campus in Charsadda, an AFP reporter said.
The attack, 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.
Two teachers were among the dead, including a chemistry professor who was praised as a hero for shooting back at the attackers and allowing some students to escape.
“My son was grown up, but still he was an innocent kid for me,” said Gula Bibi, the mother of the second slain teacher, Iftikhar Ahmad, who was also the university librarian.
“My heart is breaking apart, I don’t know what to do,” she said.
Security forces killed all four gunmen in the university attack.
