PHC restrains BKU admin from taking action against security chief

Jan 20 terrorist attack

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Monday restrained the Bacha Khan University (BKU) administration from taking action against the university’s security chief till further order of the court.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Roohul Amin Khan and Justice Syed Afsar Shah issued the restraining order.The court also issued a notice to university’s administration to submit reply in the court before the next hearing.

In compliance with the order of the then Acting Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Asad Qaiser, the university administration had issued a show-cause notice to security in-charge of the university, Ashfaq Ahmad, about his removal from the office due to failure of the security in terrorists attack.

The governor, who is chancellor of the university, had asked for action against the security in-charge on the basis of an inquiry committee’s recommendation.A high-level inquiry committee was constituted to probe the terrorist attack on the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda on January 20, in which 21 people including a professor, students and staff members were killed and 35 others injured.

The three-member committee comprising Peshawar Commissioner Dr Mohammad Fakhre Alam, Regional Police Officer of Mardan Saeed Wazir and Higher Education Special Secretary Ghafoor Baig had recommended removal of vice-chancellor and security in-charge of the university from service as well as include him in the investigation.

During hearing, the petitioner’s lawyers Abdul Latif Afridi and Khalid Anwar submitted before the bench that the university’s security staff had resisted the terrorists and fought them valiantly before the policemen and Pakistan Army reached there.

They submitted that the DIG Mardan and Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) in their statements praised the security of Bacha Khan University to engage the terrorists and promptly acted to the attack.

However, they pointed out that it was astonishing that the provincial government instead of holding regional police officer Mardan, deputy commissioner, superintendent of police and district police officer of Charsadda responsible for the attack, made one of them as member of the probe committee.

They submitted the probe committee should have held own officers responsible for their failure to provide security to the university rather than the security in-charge of the university for the attack.

The lawyers stated that the acting governor had no power to issue directives for removal of the officials of a university. They said acting governor can use his power as governor, but not as chancellor of the university.

They requested the court to retrain the university from taking action till final order in the petition as the university had already issued final show-cause to him.The court issued the restraining order directing the university not to take any action against the petitioner till next order and submit reply in the petition.