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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan attack raises tough question: should teachers shoot back? |
| 2016-01-22 |
| I'm not sure what's "tough" about the question. [REUTERS] Stuck with 15 of his students on a third floor balcony of a campus building as gunnies came up the stairs, university director Mohammad Shakil urged Pak police arriving at the scene to toss him up a gun so he could shoot back. "We were hiding ... but were unarmed," Shakil told Rooters, speaking after four Islamist Lions of Islam attacked Bacha Khan University in Pakistain's troubled northwest on Wednesday, killing more than 20 people. "I was worried about the students, and then one of the Lions of Islam came after us," Shakil added. "After repeated requests, the police threw me a pistol and I fired some shots at the terrorists." As more details of Wednesday's assault emerged, attention focused on at least two members of staff who took up arms to resist attackers bent on killing them and their students. Some hailed them as heroes, as the country digested an attack which bore similarities to the massacre, in late 2014, of 134 pupils at an army-run school in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. , about 30 km (19 miles) from where this week's violence occurred. Others questioned whether teachers should be armed, as many are, because it goes against the ideals of the profession. Such a dilemma may have been far from the mind of chemistry professor Hamid Hussain, as he locked himself inside a room with colleagues after gunnies stormed an accommodation block on the university campus. When the assailants broke down the door, Hussain fired several rounds from his pistol, according to Shabir Ahmad Khan, an English department lecturer taking cover in an adjacent washroom. "They carried on heavy shooting and I was preparing myself for death, but then they did not enter the washroom and left," Khan recalled. Later on in the same building, Hussain fired again at the Lions of Islam to allow some of his students to get away, surviving pupils told local media. Hussain was subsequently shot and later died from his wounds. "Kudos to professor Dr Hamid Hussain. Our hero fought bravely n saved many," Asma Shirazi, a popular talk show host, said on Twitter. |
| Posted by:Fred |