Pakistani university reopens following Taliban attack

PanARMENIAN.Net - The university in northwest Pakistan where Taliban gunmen killed at least 20 people last month reopened for classes on Monday, February 15 with teachers - but not students - allowed to carry weapons, Reuters reports.

Pakistani Taliban militants have threatened more assaults on schools and universities since the Jan. 20 attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, fuelling a growing sense of insecurity in the country.

The attack had reminded Pakistanis of the horrors that took place a little over a year earlier, when militants massacred 134 pupils at an army school just 19 miles (31 km) away, in Peshawar, the main city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Before Monday's reopening the university took extra security measures, installing new CCTV cameras, hiring more armed guards, and raising the height of boundary walls, vice chancellor Fazal Rahim Marwat told Reuters.

The university also decided that teachers could continue to carry their own licensed weapons as long as they do not display them in classrooms, Marwat said.

Students who owned weapons had to submit them at the entrance of the campus, he said.

The Pakistani army said the attack on the university was masterminded by Umar Mansoor, a Pakistani Taliban militant based in Afghanistan, who was also blamed for the Peshawar school massacre.

The Pakistani Taliban are fighting to topple the government and install a strict interpretation of Islamic law.