Trigger happy: Two Hazara University students gunned down

Another left injured as mob blocks KKH to protest against the violence; varsity shut indefinitely

MANSEHRA: Two university students were shot dead on Wednesday and another was left critically injured when rival groups clashed at a snooker club in Mansehra.

To protest the killing, students blocked Karakoram Highway till the early hours of Thursday morning. They reportedly damaged over a dozen vehicles during their protest, police said.

Sajjad, a Sociology student at the Hazara University and was injured in the clash, told Shinkiari police that there had been a dispute between Chand Zeb and Salman.

To settle the matter, a jirga was held at the local snooker club in the Momin Market outside the University on Wednesday evening.

Instead of defusing the situation, both sides exchanged harsh words during the Jirga. The situation soon spiraled out of control with Zeb shooting at his opponents. Salman and Tayyab suffered bullet injuries in the incident.

According to the police, the wounded were rushed to the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital from where Salman was referred to the Ayub Teaching Hospital, but he bled to death before reaching the facility.

The bullet-riddled body of Tayyab was found near Bajna village. Tayyab’s father accused Zeb of murdering of his son.

Meanwhile, angry students blocked the KKH outside the Hazara University and damaged around 12 vehicles.

The road was blocked till 3am on Thursday morning when police fired tear gas at them and baton-charged them after they refused to disperse.

The Shinkiari police subsequently registered cases against 145 protesting students of the Hazara University for wrongfully restraining a person (Section 341 of PPC), rioting (Section 147), unlawful assembly (Section 149) and criminally intimidating people (Section 506).

Some students also blocked roads near Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad Engineering University and Haripur University to protest against the murder of the two students.

In order to defuse the tension between the student groups, the Hazara University and the Higher Education Department of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have shut down the institute for an indefinite period.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2016.