The deadly terrorist attack on the Bacha Khan University campus in Pakistan’s Peshawar closely follows three others in the same fortnight, in Istanbul, Jakarta and Ouagadougou.
On the cold, foggy morning of January 20, four gunmen entered the lightly guarded campus of Bacha Khan University in Charsadda near Peshawar in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan and killed 30 people, most of them students. The siege, which lasted more than six hours, ended after the killing of the four terrorists involved in the attack. Two lecturers of the university, who used firearms in defence, were instrumental in saving the lives of many students. One of them, a chemistry lecturer, lost his life defending the students.
The terror strike came just weeks after the Pathankot attack in India’s Punjab. The same fortnight witnessed major terror attacks in Istanbul (Turkey), Jakarta (Indonesia) and Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). The terrorists who attacked the Bacha Khan University campus belonged to a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistani Taliban.
The university is named after Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, popularly known as “Frontier Gandhi” in India and “Bacha Khan” among his Pashtun compatriots. In fact, the terror attack on the university coincided with his 28th death anniversary. Bacha Khan was a strong votary of non-violence and spent a considerable part of his life in British and Pakistani jails for his active role in the freedom struggle and later on for his espousal of autonomy for the Pashtun areas in Pakistan. Bacha Khan University was established in 2012 when the left-of-centre Awami National Party was in power in the province. The party is led today by one of Ghaffar Khan’s grandsons. Extremist groups have targeted thousands of Awami Party members in the past two decades for espousing secularism.
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