As Pakistan on Thursday observed a day of national mourning for the 21 people killed when heavily-armed gunmen stormed a university in the troubled northwest region of Charsadda, Islamabad had asked K
As Pakistan on Thursday observed a day of national mourning for the 21 people killed when heavily-armed gunmen stormed a university in the troubled northwest region of Charsadda, Islamabad had asked Kabul to stop the militants based on its side of the border from attacking the country.
Sources say Afghanistan has been asked to investigate the issue and find the culprits who allegedly masterminded Wednesday’s attack on Bacha Khan University.
Earlier, chief military spokesman Lt. General Asim Saleem Bajwa said, “The attackers were in touch with a number from Afghanistan.” “The terrorists were continuously conversing on their mobile phones, two of which we have recovered and collected data from,” he added.
He said the SIMs used in the phones were of Afghan origin and a mobile phone, recovered from one of the attackers, was receiving calls even after he had been killed.
The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has submitted a complete identification report of the fingerprints of the terrorists involved in the Bacha Khan University attack, while interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has directed the concerned authorities to share the information with all intelligence agencies and security forces for further action against the terrorists.
As flags remained at half-mast on all government buildings inside and outside the country, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed a “ruthless” response to the massacre and ordered security forces to hunt those behind Wednesday’s attack. Lawyers halted courts proceedings on appeal of the Punjab bar council.
Meanwhile, universities in Pakistan’s Charsadda, Mardan and Swabi districts here have been shut indefinitely. Most of public and privately run schools in Cantonment and city areas were closed as parents of students forced the respective schools to let their children stay at home.
Armed police, some perched on the roofs of buildings, were still deployed on Thursday morning at the Bacha Khan university campus in Charsadda. Security forces remained on alert, with police foiling a bomb attack at a crowded bus station in nearby Peshawar Thursday morning.
The Charsadda assault reminded people of the 2014 atrocity, in which gunmen from the same Taliban faction slaughtered more than 150 people at an Army-run school in Peshawar. The majority of those victims were children, and their relatives held a candlelight vigil in Peshawar late on Wednesday.
