February 15, 2016•Update: February 15, 2016
By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
In an atmosphere of melancholic reflection, the campus of Bacha Khan University in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) province -- the target of a deadly rampage last month by Taliban militants -- reopened on Monday.
On Jan. 20, four heavily-armed militants stormed the campus in KP’s Charsadda district, located some 40 kilometers from provincial capital Peshawar.
The attackers managed to kill 22 people, mostly students, and injure another 60 before they themselves were killed by Pakistani security forces.
On Monday at 8am, a first batch of students arrived at the heavily-fortified entrance of the campus, where they were welcomed by the university vice chancellor and other faculty members.
The sprawling campus, replete with several newly built watchtowers, was surrounded by dozens of police and university guards.
Dressed entirely in black, three female police commandos stood guard nearby.
Photos of students slain in the attack, meanwhile, could be seen hanging on the walls of different campus buildings.
"Long live Bacha Khan University; long live Pakistan," emotional students and faculty members shouted.
Aside from the somber atmosphere, there was little sign of the tragedy witnessed only one month ago, as the bullet-riddled walls of classes and offices have since been repaired and repainted.
Scores of students gathered outside the campus and chanted slogans against the government, especially Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, for failing to have visited the university in the wake of the attack or offering compensation to the families of the victims.
"It’s been almost one month… but neither the prime minister nor any other high-ups in the federal government have visited us," Nisar Mohmind, an international relations student, told reporters.
"Nearly 100 families have been affected by this deadly attack, but the federal government has not announced [plans to give] even a single penny to them in compensation," he said.
Last month’s deadly assault -- reminiscent of a similar attack on an army-run school in Peshawar that killed over 140 people in 2014 -- has led the authorities to beef up security even further at the nation’s educational institutions.
Pakistani intelligence agencies, for their part, say they expect more such attacks in the future.
