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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
World
Bonnie Malkin and Matthew Weaver

Pakistan university attack: at least 30 dead as gunmen storm Bacha Khan campus

Bacha Khan university shooting: Local news footage shows immediate aftermath

That’s it for now. Jon Boone’s story on the attack wraps up the main developments and now includes some analysis of the context by Jason Burke.

A security official told Reuters that the eventual death toll could rise to as high as 40.

A spokesman for rescue workers, Bilal Ahmad Faizi, said 19 bodies had been recovered including students, guards, policemen and at least one teacher, named by media as chemistry professor Syed Hamid Hussain.

Many of the dead were apparently shot in the head, TV footage showed.

Reuters also has this account of the how the attack unfolded:

The militants, using the cover of thick, wintry fog, scaled the walls of the university before entering buildings and opening fire on students and teachers in classrooms and hostels, police said.

Students told media they saw several young men wielding AK-47 guns storming the university housing where many students were sleeping.


“They came from behind and there was a big commotion,” an unnamed male student told a news channel from a hospital bed in Charsadda’s District Hospital. “We were told by teachers to leave immediately. Some people hid in bathrooms.”
Television footage showed military vehicles packed with soldiers driving into the campus as helicopters buzzed overhead and ambulances lined up outside the main gate while anxious parents consoled each other.
Shabir Khan, a lecturer in the English department, said he was about to leave his university housing for the department when firing began.


“Most of the students and staff were in classes when the firing began,” Khan said. “I have no idea about what’s going on but I heard one security official talking on the phone to someone and said many people had been killed and injured.”

The terrorist monitoring group SITE confirms the mixed messages coming from the Pakistani Taliban. While one commander Umar Mansoor claimed responsibility for the attack. The organisation’s central spokesman Muhammad Khurasni has strongly condemned it.

AFP has more on how a chemistry teacher died in the attack trying to fight the gunmen.

Lecturer Syed Hamid Hussain, an assistant professor of chemistry at the Bacha Khan university in Charsadda, ordered his students to stay inside as Taliban gunmen stormed the campus.

Students told of how he opened fire on gunmen as they rampaged across campus, giving the young people time to flee before he was cut down in a hail of bullets.

“We saw three terrorists shouting, ‘Allah is great!’ and rushing towards the stairs of our department,” one man told reporters.

“One student jumped out of the classroom through the window. We never saw him get up.”

He described seeing Hussain holding a pistol and firing at the attackers.

“Then we saw him fall down and as the terrorists entered the (registrar) office we ran away.”

Geology student Zahoor Ahmed said Husain had warned him not to leave the building after the first shots were fired.

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

“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.”

“They fired directly at” the professor, sociology student Muhammad Daud told AFP, describing Hussain as “a real gentleman and a respectable teacher”.

Tributes were paid to the academic on Twitter.

Pakistan’s President Mamnoon Hussain confirmed the lecturer had died, and expressed his grief and condolences to the man’s family.

Updated

Attack over

A Pakistani Army official has said the attack is over.

Army spokesman Asim Bajwa the army chief General Raheel Sharif was able to visit the campus after police and soldiers cleared the area.

Journalist Omar Quraishi has some background and a photograph of Omar Mansoor, the Pakistani Taliban commander who initially claimed the TTP carried out the attack.

Mansoor also told AP that the TTP carried out the attack.

It points out that he was mastermind behind the December 2014 attack on an army-run school in Peshawar.

Mansoor says his four-man team conducted the assault at the campus in the town of Chasadda. He says it was in revenge for the scores of militants the Pakistani security forces have killed in recent months.

Updated

Pakistani Taliban spokesman condemns attack

The Pakistani Taliban now seem to be backing away from that claim of responsibility.

The claim was originally Umar Mansoor, a TTP commander, who told AFP: “Our four suicide attackers carried out the attack on Bacha Khan University.”

But a Facebook post by Mansoor about the attack has since been removed.

Another TTP spokesman said the organisation was not responsible and has condemned it, according to the Express Tribune.

Pakistan opposition leader Imran Khan, chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, has condemned the attack and said the country is united against terrorism.

What we know so far

  • The gunmen entered the campus at about 9.30am local time (4.30am GMT), apparently using the cover of thick morning fog, and opened fire on students and teachers in classrooms and accommodation blocks. A gun battle between the attackers and Pakistan security forces ensued.
  • Reports said there were four gunmen wearing suicide bomb vests. The attack was claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban, a Pakistani militant group.
  • About three hours after the attack began, the Pakistani army said the attackers were contained in two university blocks and that four of them had been killed.
  • Witnesses report a much higher death toll than that given officially. A 23-year-old student said he counted 56 bodies and saw gunmen shooting male and female students “without discrimination”.
  • About three hours after the attack started, the army said the campus was quiet as soldiers conducted a block-by-block search. Four attackers were killed, including two who were shot dead by snipers, it said.
  • Pakistan’s prime minister, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, said he was “deeply grieved” over the attack, and vowed to fight to the end and destroy “the menace of terrorism”.
  • In December 2014, gunmen affiliated with Tehreek-e-Taliban attacked an army school in Peshawar, killing 132 children. Since then, the Pakistani authorities have killed and arrested hundreds of suspected militants under a counter-terrorism plan enacted in the wake of the massacre.

After one Pakistani Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack another is reported to have condemned it, pointing to possible splits in Tehrik-e-Taliban, according to the Guardian’s Jason Burke.

Earlier Umar Mansoor, TTP commander told AFP: “Our four suicide attackers carried out the attack on Bacha Khan University today.”

AFP has a grim timeline on deadliest insurgent attacks in Pakistan since 2007

2007

  • 18 October: Bomb attacks targeting former prime minister Benazir Bhutto kill 139 people in Karachi as she returns to Pakistan for the first time in eight years. She was later killed in another gun and suicide attack on 27 December.

2008

  • 21 August: Twin suicide attacks kill 64 people outside Pakistan’s main arms factory in Wah near Islamabad.
  • 20 September: Sixty people are killed when a suicide truck bomb brings down part of the five-star Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

2009

  • 28 October: A car bomb destroys a market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 125 people.

2010

  • 1 January: A suicide car bomb kills 101 people at a village volleyball game in the northwestern district of Bannu.
  • 12 March: Twin suicide attacks on the military in Lahore kill 57.
  • 28 May: Gun and suicide attackers storm mosques belonging to the Ahmadi religious minority in Lahore, killing 82 people.
  • 9 July: A suicide bomber blows himself up in a busy market in the northwestern Mohmand tribal district, killing 105 people.
  • 3 September: A suicide attack kills 59 at a Shiite Muslim rally in the southwestern city of Quetta.
  • 5 November: A suicide bomber kills 68 people during Friday prayers in the northwest’s Darra Adam Khel area.

2011

  • 3 April: Fifty die after two suicide bombers attack a Sufi shrine in the central town of Dera Ghazi Khan.
  • 13 May: Two suicide bombers kill at least 98 people outside a police cadet training centre in Charsadda.
  • 19 August: A suicide bomber hits a mosque during Friday prayers in the tribal district of Khyber, killing at least 43.

2012

  • 11 January: Thirty-five die when a remote-controlled bomb detonates in a market in the northwestern tribal areas.
  • 16 August: Gunmen drag 20 Shia Muslims off a bus and shoot them in the northwestern district of Mansehra.

2013

  • 10 January: A double suicide attack on a snooker club kills 92 in a Shiite Hazara neighbourhood of Quetta.
  • 16 February: A bomb at a market at Hazara Town, a Shia Hazara neighbourhood in the suburbs of Quetta, kills 89.
  • 3 March: A car bomb explodes in a Shiite Muslim neighbourhood in Karachi, killing 45.
  • 27 July: Twin explosions at a busy marketplace in northwest Pakistan kill 41.
  • 9 August: A suicide bomber targets the funeral of a senior police officer in Quetta, killing 38.
  • 22 September: Eighty-two people die when two suicide bombers attack a church in Peshawar after a Sunday service.
  • 29 September: A car bomb in a busy market area in Peshawar kills 42.

2014

  • 19 January: A bomb rips through a military convoy in the northwestern city of Bannu, killing 20 soldiers.
  • 21 January: A bomb on a bus kills 24 Shia pilgrims in the southwestern province of Balochistan.
  • 10 June: Ten Taliban militants lay siege to Karachi airport, killing 27 people.
  • 2 November: Fifty-five are killed by a suicide bomber at the daily closing ceremony at the main Pakistan-India border crossing.
  • 16 December: Taliban insurgents storm an army-run school in Peshawar, killing at least 154 people including 135 children.

2015

  • 30 January: 62 people are killed as a suicide bomber hits a Shiite mosque in the Shikarpur district.
  • 13 February: Militants attack a Shia mosque in Peshawar, killing 22.
  • 13 May: Forty-three Shiite Muslims are killed when gunmen open fire on their bus in Karachi.
  • 18 September: The Pakistani Taliban attack an air force base near Peshawar and kill at least 29 people, most of them servicemen.
  • 23 October: A suspected suicide blast which targeted Shiite Muslims in the southern city of Jacobabad kills 24.
  • 13 December: A bomb rips through a crowded bazaar in a mainly Shiite area of Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region, killing at least 23.
  • 29 December: A Taliban suicide bomber on a motorcycle kills 26 in the northwestern town of Mardan.

2016

  • 20 January 20: Taliban gunmen attack a university in Charsadda, killing at least 21.

Britain’s high commissioner to Pakistan, Philip Barton, has expressed his concerns about the attack.

General Raheel Sharif
General Raheel Sharif Photograph: HO/AFP/Getty Images

Pakistan’s army chief, General Raheel Sharif, has arrived at the Bacha Khan campus.

He is to briefed on the unfolding situation as soldiers continue to sweep the campus for militants.

Updated

Nawaz Sharif
Nawaz Sharif
 Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

Pakistan’s prime minister Nawaz Sharif has vowed to fight to the end and destroy “the menace of terrorism”.

A statement from Sharif was quoted on the website of the Daily Pakistan.

It said: “We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland.”

The bodies of some of the victims have taken away in coffins after being laid out covered in blood stained sheets.

People gather around the bodies of the victims of the Bacha Khan University attack.
People gather around the bodies of the victims of the Bacha Khan University attack. Photograph: Bilawal Arbab/EPA
Rescue workers prepare coffins for the bodies of victims at a hospital following the gun attack.
Rescue workers prepare coffins for the bodies of victims at a hospital following the gun attack. Photograph: Bilawal Arbab/EPA
People move the body of a victim.
People move the body of a victim. Photograph: Bilawal Arbab/EPA

India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has been quick to condemn the attack. Writing on Twitter he also passed on his sympathies to the families of the victims.

Pakistani Taliban claims responsibility

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, AFP confirms.

“Our four suicide attackers carried out the attack on Bacha Khan University today,” Umar Mansoor, a commander in the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistani (TTP) militant group told AFP.

Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, he said it was in response to a military offensive against extremists in the tribal areas.

Pakistani police officers clear the way for an ambulance to arrive at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda town.
Pakistani police officers clear the way for an ambulance to arrive at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda town. Photograph: Mohammad Sajjad/AP

Updated

A student from the universtiy recalls hearing the gun battles.

Aizaz Khan said students were told to stay in their rooms as the gun battle unfolded. He said the soldiers showed “great bravery” in tackling the gunmen.

Salman Khan, an operating theatre technician at the Charsadda district hospital, said the critically injured had head and chest wounds, writes Jon Boone.

Fifty of the most seriously wounded have been moved to the larger Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar, the nearby provincial capital.

Pakistani rescuers shift an injured man at a hospital following an attack by gunmen at Bacha Khan university in Charsadda.
Pakistani rescuers shift an injured man at a hospital following an attack by gunmen at Bacha Khan university in Charsadda. Photograph: Hasham Ahmed/AFP/Getty Images

One of the victims has been named as chemistry lecturer Syed Hamid Hussain, according to Pakistan’s Express Tribune.

Witnesses said he died trying to fight the attackers.

It quotes student Zahoor Ahmed saying Hussain had warned him not to leave the building after the first shots were fired.

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

“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 student also described seeing the chemistry professor holding a pistol and firing at the attackers.

“We saw him fall down and as the terrorists entered the (registrar) office we ran away.”

Updated

The Dawn news site points out that before today’s attack Pakistan already had the highest number of people killed.

With 850 attacks Pakistan has the highest number of attacks on places of learning by country, Dawn said citing figures from Global Terrorism Database (GTD) at the University of Maryland, Dawn said

More than 140 students and staff were killed just over a year ago at an army school in Peshawar.

The government of Pakistan has issued a statement condemning the attack. It said:

President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have condemned terrorist attack and directed security agencies to clear the university of terrorists at the earliest. The Prime Minister House spokesman said Nawaz Sharif is personally monitoring the situation and he is being kept updated about the latest development. The PrimeMinister expressed sorrow and grief on the loss of precious lives in the terror attack. He said those who attacked innocent students and citizens have no religion and the government is committed to eliminate them.

Speaker and Deputy Speaker National Assembly, Chief Ministers of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh and PTI Chief Imran Khan have also condemned the terrorist attack.

Witness: students indiscriminately shot

At midday a provincial minister revised the death toll to up to 30, although eye witnesses said the final number would be far higher, writes Jon Boone.

Naseer, a 23 year old student, said he counted 56 bodies and saw gunmen shooting male and female students “without discrimination”.

“They were directly shooting at the heads of the students,” he said.

Iftikar Khan, the owner of a travel agency in Charsadda, visited the city hospital where he estimated a stream of ambulances delivered well over 100 bodies.

“A lot of them were girls,” he said.

A male student just told me militants entered the campus and started killing students indiscriminately Both male and female students were shot, he said.

The number of people killed in the attack is difficult to pin down as officials give varying figures.

AFP says at least 21 people were killed. “The death toll in the terrorist attack has risen to 21,” regional police chief Saeed Wazir told the agency.

AP cites an unnamed official giving a figure of 19 killed.

Within the last few minutes Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, the Khyber Paktunkhwa health minister, is reported to have said that up 31 people were killed. Earlier he warned that the death toll is likely to rise.

What we know so far

Here’s a summary of what we know so far:

  • At least 20 people were killed when gunmen attacked Bacha Khan university campus in Charsadda, north-west Pakistan. Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, the Khyber Paktunkhwa health minister, says so far 20 are confirmed dead and 60 injured. He warned the death toll will rise.
  • Reports said four gunmen armed with suicide bomb vests attacked the university while it was shrouded in thick fog. A gun battle followed between the attackers and members of the security forces. Television footage showed soldiers entering the campus as ambulances lined up outside the main gate and anxious parents consoled each other.
  • The army says the campus is quiet as soldiers conduct a block-by-block search. All four attackers were killed including two who were shot dead by snipers.
  • There are unconfirmed reports that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the attack.
  • Pakistan’s prime minister, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, said he was “deeply grieved” over the attack.

Updated

The Army spokesman on the ground, Asim Bajwa, says the campus has fallen quiet and no gunfire can be heard as security forces continue their sweep of the campus.

Jon Boone, our correspondent, has more on how the attack unfolded:

Sohail Khalid, a local police officer, said the attackers took advantage of thick winter fog that shrouded the university in the morning to enter the campus through nearby agricultural land.

Security was enhanced at all educational institutions in Pakistan following the December 2014 attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar which left more than 130 students dead.

Khalid said a festival of poetry and Pashtun culture had been underway with many attendees and poets on the campus at the time.

A still from outside the university shows emergency personnel carrying stretchers for people injured in the attack.

This video still image shows police and emergency personnel outside Bacha Khan University in Charsadda.
This video still image shows police and emergency personnel outside Bacha Khan University in Charsadda. Photograph: AP

Our Pakistan correspondent Jon Boone has just sent this in:

Shaukat Ali Yousafzai, the Khyber Paktunkhwa health minister, says so far 20 are confirmed dead and 60 injured. He warned the death toll will rise.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility and said four gunmen armed with suicide bomb vests attacked the university.

There are now multiple reports attributed to the Pakistani information minister that 20 people have been killed, however the Guardian has not been able to verify this.

One witness who escaped told Dawn News that the attackers had taken position at the entry points of the school:

“I saw three attackers engaged in an exchange of fire with security guards of the university. One was positioned at the roof, another near the corner and the third near the wall.”

“We rescued the university’s guards and then I saw the attackers engage the arriving police party.”

Reuters is reporting a total of eight people dead, with firing continuing inside the campus. Deputy inspector general Saeed Wazir said at least three students have been killed in the attack.

Four terrorists are now confirmed to have been killed in the operation to secure the campus.

An update on the death toll from the attack: Pakistan media are reporting that the emergency services say there are at least seven dead and 12 injured.

Bacha Khan University is a public-sector institute established in July 2012 and named after Pashtun independence and peace activist Abdul Ghaffar Khan.

It describes its mission as “foster creative and critical thinking” among its students with a particular focus on scientific research.
Khan was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi and has had airports and medical colleges named after him.

Khan, who fiercely opposed the division of India, died on 20 January 1988, in Peshawar while under house arrest. He was buried in Jalalabad. Thousands attended his funeral, which was hit by two bomb explosions in which 15 people died.

Today is the 28th anniversary of his death.

Updated

At least two terrorists have been confirmed dead, according to the army’s spokesman.

There are reports that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have claimed responsibility for the attack. The militant group has a habit of grabbing global headlines.

The Pakistani prime minister has expressed his sorrow over news of the attack.

Nawaz Sharif expresses grief over attack.

There is a large military presence outside the campus now.

Soldiers outside the Bacha Khan campus

There were hundreds of people at the university when the attack began. The Bacha Khan University teaches over 3,000 students and hosted an additional 600 visitors on Wednesday for a poetry recital.

An update on the injured from deputy inspector general Saeed Wazir, who told Reuters three security guards, one university lecturer and one student were critically wounded but there were no confirmed deaths. He said 70% of students had been rescued.

Reuters has spoken to a university lecturer who overheard police saying many people had been killed:

Shabir Khan, a lecturer in the English department, said he was about to leave the hostel for the department when firing began.

“Most of the students and staff were in classes when the firing began,” Khan said. “I have no idea about what’s going on but I heard one security official talking on the phone to someone and said many people had been killed and injured.”

Images from the scene show security personnel outside the university grounds.

This photograph taken from a mobile phone shows Pakistani security personnel taking position outside the Bacha Khan university.
This photograph taken from a mobile phone shows Pakistani security personnel taking position outside the Bacha Khan university. Photograph: A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images

The Guardian has a reporter on the ground who says security forces are claiming that the gunmen have taken a number of people hostage inside the campus, including women.

There are reports that one of the casualties of the attack is a chemistry professor. However, there is no official confirmation of his death or the number of dead and injured.

Images from outside the campus show emergency services on standby.

A senior military spokesman has been tweeting about the operation at Bacha Khan:

Here is some detail on how the attack began:

“The gunmen entered from the back gate of the university where the guest house and started opening doors and firing indiscriminately. Right now, the gunmen are holed up behind a wall of the boy’s hostel,” a student, Abid Ali, who was evacuated from the university told The Express Tribune.

There are reports from some Pakistani media outlets of large numbers of casualties within the university. However, there has been no confirmation so far from the authorities and the situation is ongoing.

One eyewitness told Geo News there are ten militants inside the university and a large number of worried parents have gathered outside the university worried about their children inside.

Reuters is reporting that police say most of the students on the campus have been rescued but gunmen remain on the second and third floors of the campus building.

Hospitals in the region are reportedly on red alert, with the expectation of many casualties. ARY news reports that as many as seven blasts in total were heard from inside the university.

One eyewitness said he was hiding in the toilet while militants roamed the university.

Gunmen have attacked the Bacha Khan university in Charsadda, northwest Pakistan. Firing is ongoing inside the campus and at least two explosions have been heard. There are reports of 50 people injured and one dead. The university’s vice chancellor says students are trapped on the campus. The army is on the scene.

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