PESHAWAR: The Bacha Khan University reopened for classes on Monday with teachers – but not students – allowed to carry weapons.
Taliban militants have threatened more assaults on schools and universities since the Jan 20 attack on the university in Charsadda, fueling a growing sense of insecurity in the country.
The attack had reminded the people of the horrors that took place a little over a year earlier, when militants massacred 134 pupils at an army school just 31 km away, in Peshawar, the main city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Before Monday’s reopening, the university took extra security measures, installing new CCTV cameras, hiring more armed guards, and raising the height of boundary walls, vice chancellor Fazal Rahim Marwat said.
The university also decided that teachers could continue to carry their own licensed weapons as long as they do not display them in classrooms, Marwat said.
A chemistry professor who was killed during last month’s assault had been lauded as a hero for firing back at the attackers. But Marwat said the school decided to reject a request from some teachers to issue them firearms.
“After taking whatever security measures were possible for protection of students and faculty members, we have opened the university for classes?,” Marwat said.
Students who owned weapons had to submit them at the entrance of the campus, he said.
Many of the returning students arrived at the campus with their parents and relatives, who waited while they went to classes. Several, however, were still too traumatised to attend school or were made to stay home by scared parents.
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