RAWALPINDI: Chief of Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif on Thursday telephoned Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani and shared with him details of investigation into Wednesday’s terrorist attack on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, said the military’s media wing chief.
In successive messages on Twitter, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) head Lt Gen Asim Bajwa said the army chief also shared these details with Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah and commander of Resolute Support Mission and United States Forces in Afghanistan Gen John Campbell. Bajwa said investigation into the Charsadda university attack had revealed it was “being controlled from a location in Afghanistan through an Afghan cell phone by a TTP operative.”
At least 20 people were killed when four unidentified gunmen entered Bacha Khan University in Charsadda and opened fire on students and faculty members as they gathered at the school for a poetry recital to commemorate the death anniversary of the activist and leader whom the school is named after. The mastermind of the APS Peshawar attack, Umar Mansoor, of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Geedar group had claimed the attack through a post on his Facebook page, adding that four attackers were sent to the university.
However, a spokesperson from the TTP, Mohammad Khorasani, issued a conflicting statement shortly after Mansoor’s claim, in which Khorasani condemned the attack, terming it “against Shariah”. Khorasani also warned that those “using the naming of TTP will be brought to justice”. Later, in a press conference, ISPR Director General Lt Gen Asim Bajwa claimed that security forces have achieved major breakthroughs in identifying the terrorists who attacked the varsity. Bajwa also said forensics and fingerprints of the attackers had been shared with the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA), with whose input “an intelligence picture is also being created”. He added that intelligence-based operations (IBOs) are being carried out to hunt down the facilitators of the terrorists involved in the attack.
General Raheel Sharif on Thursday reached out to President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah to seek cooperation in locating those responsible for the attack, said Gen Bajwa. Using the cover of thick, wintry fog, the militants scaled the walls of Bacha Khan University before entering buildings and opening fire on students and teachers in classrooms and hostels, police said. The attack comes a little over a year after Taliban gunmen stormed Army Public School in December 2014 and slaughtered more than 150 people, most of them children, in an hours-long siege.
DAILY TIMES.
YEMI.
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