For education: BKU students plan protest against lax security

Varsity to reopen today

SHABQADAR: Bacha Khan University is to reopen on Monday (today), officials told The Express Tribune. On the same day, the varsity’s students will take out a rally from the university to Farooq Azam Chowk in Charsadda.

Different student unions at the university plan to hold a gathering against the terrorist attack and “poor security arrangements” by the university administration.



An intelligence-based operation was going on in the district, looking for suspects, a security official familiar with the matter told The Express Tribune on Sunday.

Security lapse

An enquiry was also under way about the security lapse by the university administration, he added.

“BKU was asked by the district administration on at least five occasions to make proper security arrangements, install CCTV cameras in proper places and set up walkthrough gates”. He added the back wall of the university was only five feet high. And despite receiving all such notifications, the administration neglected the advice given by law-enforcement agencies and the district administration, said the security official.

He added a sub-divisional police officer visited the university a day before the attack and asked the staff to tighten security. He said the administration was planning on training security guards on the day the attack took place.

However, he added, the militants could not achieve their target easily as there was dense fog on the day of the attack. But the low walls allowed them to scale the parameter and breach the premises easily, he said.

The CCTV footage was also not of high quality, said the official. “Even the guards did not have modern automatic weapons – most of them had obsolete repeater and shot guns, very few had Kalashnikovs.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th,  2016.