Varsity attack was being directed from Afghanistan, claim security quarters

Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif on Wednesday decided to once again share the forensic evidence with the Afghan government about the mastermind of the terrorist attack on Bacha Khan University and to urge the Afghan authorities to conduct a targeted operation against the culprits and hand them over to Pakistan.

A well placed source told Pakistan Today that even though four terrorists had scaled the walls of the university building from the rear after cutting the wires with commando kits, there is reasonable evidence that they had facilitators who helped them climb the wall and breach the building.

The source said that an operation had been launched to track down the facilitators of the terrorists.

While the facilitators are being tracked, Pakistan also plans to track down the mastermind of the attack who, the source said, was operating from inside Afghanistan.

“We believe that the Afghan soil is being used against Pakistan again. We will confront the Afghan government with the evidence and the leads that we have. We hope that President Ashraf Ghani would help us track the hardcore terrorists who are operating from the Afghan soil,” the source added.

The source said that the decision to approach Ghani had been taken at a review meeting chaired by the COAS.

“We know that the terrorists were being directed by the mastermind from Afghanistan even as our commandos were conducting an operation against them. We have traced the details of the mastermind. We even have the locations of the terrorists,” the source said.

The source said that the major breakthrough came after forensic data was recovered from the two mobile phones found in the terrorists’ possession.

The source said that the last calls had been made to Afghanistan numbers.

Security sources also suspect Indian involvement in the attack, saying they has substantive leads to suggest that the attack was carried out through Indian funding and Afghan intelligence support.

Meanwhile, NADRA has also received forensic fingerprint evidence of the terrorists. According to details, all four terrorists were Pakistani nationals, while two of them were below 18.

“We have shared all the information with the intelligence agencies,” an official of the Interior Ministry said. He said that four kalashnikovs had been recovered from the terrorists.

“Moreover, 20 live grenades and two cellular phones were also recovered from terrorists,” he said.

The source said that terrorists planned to take the management of the varsity hostage and for the purpose they moved towards the administration block but were engaged before they could reach there.

Later, they moved towards the boys’ hostel where massive damage was done.

“At the hostel, one terrorist went to the first floor while the other went to the second one as a third gave them cover from the rooftop. They were engaged there and were later killed one by one,” the source added.

Assistant Professor Syed Hamid Hussain carried a gun under Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s policy of ‘a teacher with a gun’. The martyred professor could easily have escaped but he engaged the terrorists to provide cover to the evacuating students.

“Prof. Hamid Hussain evacuated two students who wanted to flee towards the main gate. He told them about terrorists’ presence there and asked them to go from the back wall. The terrorists, however, targeted the professor as the students managed to flee from the rear side,” the source said.