The Bacha Khan University has demanded the government arm its staff as it resumed education activities on Monday five days after it was attacked by armed militants who killed 21 people and injured more than 30.
“We have demanded weapons from the government and weapons licences for all teachers and management officials,” Bacha Khan University registrar Hamidullah Khan told a foreign news agency.
Wednesday’s attack in Charsadda saw heavily-armed militants storm the campus, gunning down students and teachers in a bloody rampage before they were killed by the military.
Among the 21 victims was a chemistry professor who students said fired his own pistol at the militants before he died in a hail of bullets.
Teachers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were given permission to carry firearms after the Pakistani Taliban massacred more than 150 people, the majority of them children, at a school in the provincial capital Peshawar in 2014.
The Bacha Khan attack, which bore chilling similarities to the Peshawar massacre, has spurred the debate on arming teachers in Pakistan once more.
University registrar Khan said the campus had been reopened Monday but only to administrative staff, with classes suspended indefinitely as authorities seek to improve security.
“Students wanted to resume the classes,” he said. “We appreciate their courage, but we now cannot take any risk on security.”
Students and teachers were being screened by police and security guards at the entrance to the campus Monday, a journalist said.
“They (militants) cannot stop us, we will try to face them and continue our studies,” a student who gave his name as Abdullah said.
University employee Jehangir Khan echoed the call for the government to provide tighter security, noting the university was surrounded by open fields.
“Students are afraid,” he said.
A memorial service was held at the university Monday to “pay tribute to the martyrs”, vice chancellor Fazal Rahim told this news agency while Khan said the victims belongings were later handed over to their families.
On Friday, the Taliban faction behind both the Peshawar massacre and the Bacha Khan attack posted a video message vowing to target schools throughout the country, calling them “nurseries” for people who challenge Allah’s law.
Meanwhile, according to Radio Pakistan, Bacha Khan University was again closed over security and other reasons a few hours after its reopening.
The varsity’s public relation officer said that reopening of the university would be decided within next ten days. A peace rally was also taken out from the university on Monday.
Earlier on Saturday, Army spokesperson DG ISPR Lt-Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa said the four gunmen who attacked a university were trained in Afghanistan and the assault was controlled by a TTP militant from a location inside Afghanistan.
In a briefing to reporters from the city of Peshawar, Bajwa said the militants received training in Afghanistan and crossed over into Pakistan from the Torkham border between the two countries.
He said the attack was masterminded by Umar Mansoor, a TTP militant based in Afghanistan who is also held responsible for the December 2014 massacre of 134 children in the city of Peshawar – the deadliest militant attack in Pakistan’s history.
A deputy of Mansoor helped the attackers reach the Torkham border from where they crossed over into Pakistan, the spokesman said.
The army’s claims once more highlight the need for improved relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan which would prevent militants from carrying out cross-border terrorism which have undermined peace efforts in the region.
Pakistani officials say the TTP chief known as Mullah Fazlullah has been orchestrating raids on Pakistan from Afghanistan, where he fled several years ago after a Pakistani army offensive against his stronghold in the Swat Valley.
