PHC seeks BKU attack inquiry report

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) has asked the government to submit inquiry report before the next hearing in a writ petition of security in-charge of the Bacha Khan University (BKU), who challenged the inquiry report in the terrorists attack on the university.

A two-member bench comprising Justice Irshad Qaiser and Justice Syed Afsar Shah on Tuesday directed the additional advocate general to submit the inquiry report conducted after the terrorists attack on the university.

On previous hearing, the court had restrained the BKU administration from taking action against the security chief till further order of the court.The petitioner’s lawyers Abdul Latif Afridi and Khalid Anwar said 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.The lawyers said that 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 persons 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. They said that the university’s security staff had resisted the terrorists and fought them valiantly before the policemen and Pakistan Army reached there.

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 the failure to provide security to the university rather than the security in-charge of the university for the attack.