Remove VC, security chief at Pakistan's Bacha Khan University: Probe panel

Islamabad: A high-level committee in Pakistan formed to probe the Taliban attack at Bacha Khan University has held inadequate security measures responsbile for the carnage that killed 21 people, and recommended the removal of the varsity's vice-chancellor and security in-charge.

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's provincial government had set up a three-member committee to probe the January 20 assault at the University - named after the iconic Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan - in Charsadda that killed 21 people, including 19 students.

The committee held university's vice chancellor and security in-charge responsible for "serious lapses in the security management" and recommended their removal.

They were also held responsible by the committee for their failure to take any security aspect into consideration.

The "university leadership failed its students and employees at all levels," the committee said in its report.

According to the report, though preventative security measures including observation posts were in place and CCTV cameras installed but there was no central control room for monitoring the cameras.

The committee found that the cameras installed at the point from where the terrorists scaled up the campus wall were facing the wrong direction.

It said the security staff at the university were not trained and most of them were employed on daily wages.

The committee filed its report based on oral and written statements of the staff, and also reviewed the available data and evidence.

The attack revived memories of the horrific December 2014 Taliban attack on an army-run school in the nearby city of Peshawar that killed 150 people, 144 of them children.

Taliban militants have threatened to target Pakistan's educational institutions.