- Vice-Chancellor says mindest of militants will be defeated.
The university in northwest Pakistan where Taleban terrorists killed at least 20 people last month reopened for classes on Monday with teachers - but not students - allowed to carry weapons.
The university was guarded by hundreds of policemen, highlighting a pervasive atmosphere of fear after the militant group vowed to continue to strike schools throughout the country.
Heavily armed gunmen stormed the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda on January 20, killing teachers and students in a rampage that left 21 dead.
The attack shattered the sense of security growing in the troubled region a year after the Peshawar school massacre, in which more than 150 people - mainly children - were killed.
"I am very happy to announce that the university has been re-opened today but amid very strict security," the university's vice chancellor Fazal Rahim Marwat said. He said the university was re-opened with an objective "to defeat the mindset of militants, which was behind the terrorist attack of January 20".
A sense of panic has gripped parents across Pakistan in the wake of the university assault, with rumours of attacks leading to closures of educational institutions.
Last week, a government-run girls college for women in Rawalpindi evacuated hundreds of students following an exchange of gun-fire between police and car thieves nearby.
It followed a similar incident at a girls' high school in the central city of Faisalabad just weeks earlier.
At the university on Monday police and elite commandos were seen taking up positions over rooftops, while students were made to pass through body scanners and frisked before entering.
Marwat said the university had set up special camps for the psychological treatment of traumatised students.
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.
"We have come to the university today with a firm commitment to uphold sacrifices of our fellow students," said Rehmat Ullah, 20, a student of Bio-technology department. Iftikhar Alam, a university professor, added: "We are starting classes today to make it clear to the world that we are ready to defeat our enemies and those who want to plunge Pakistan into darkness and illiteracy."
The university attack was claimed by the Taleban terror leader Khalifa Umar Mansoor calling schools "nurseries" for people who challenge Allah's law.
The university was guarded by hundreds of policemen, highlighting a pervasive atmosphere of fear after the militant group vowed to continue to strike schools throughout the country.
Heavily armed gunmen stormed the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda on January 20, killing teachers and students in a rampage that left 21 dead.
The attack shattered the sense of security growing in the troubled region a year after the Peshawar school massacre, in which more than 150 people - mainly children - were killed.
"I am very happy to announce that the university has been re-opened today but amid very strict security," the university's vice chancellor Fazal Rahim Marwat said. He said the university was re-opened with an objective "to defeat the mindset of militants, which was behind the terrorist attack of January 20".
A sense of panic has gripped parents across Pakistan in the wake of the university assault, with rumours of attacks leading to closures of educational institutions.
Last week, a government-run girls college for women in Rawalpindi evacuated hundreds of students following an exchange of gun-fire between police and car thieves nearby.
It followed a similar incident at a girls' high school in the central city of Faisalabad just weeks earlier.
At the university on Monday police and elite commandos were seen taking up positions over rooftops, while students were made to pass through body scanners and frisked before entering.
Marwat said the university had set up special camps for the psychological treatment of traumatised students.
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.
"We have come to the university today with a firm commitment to uphold sacrifices of our fellow students," said Rehmat Ullah, 20, a student of Bio-technology department. Iftikhar Alam, a university professor, added: "We are starting classes today to make it clear to the world that we are ready to defeat our enemies and those who want to plunge Pakistan into darkness and illiteracy."
The university attack was claimed by the Taleban terror leader Khalifa Umar Mansoor calling schools "nurseries" for people who challenge Allah's law.
- Flanked by veiled armed extremists, he said that instead of targeting professional soldiers, "we will target the nurseries that produce these people" as they are the softest targets for the militants.
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