Armed militants stormed a university in volatile north-western Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens a little more than a year after the massacre of 134 students at a school in the area, officials said.
A
senior Pakistani Taliban commander claimed responsibility for the
assault in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, but an official spokesman later
denied involvement, calling the attack “un-Islamic.”
The
violence nevertheless shows militants retain the ability to launch
attacks, despite a nationwide anti-terrorism crackdown and a military
campaign against their strongholds along the lawless border with
Afghanistan.
A security official said the death toll
could rise to 40 at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda. The Army said it
had concluded operations to clear the campus six hours after the attack
began, and that four gunmen were dead.
A spokesman
for rescue workers, Bilal Ahmad Faizi, said 19 bodies had been
recovered, including those of students, guards, policemen and at least
one teacher, named by the media as chemistry professor Syed Hamid
Husain. Husain reportedly shot back at the gunmen with a pistol to allow
his students to flee.
Many of the dead were
apparently shot in the head, TV footage showed. Thirty-five of the
wounded are being treated in hospital, a police officer said. — Reuters
Source:- The Hindu, 21-Jan-2016
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