While Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is doing his best to wipe his slate about the attack on Pathankot, there has been an outrage inside his country. With the Taliban in West Pakistan continually on the rampage, the terror attacks at Bacha Khan University at Charsadda the northwest of the country were nothing unprecedented. One recalls the massacre of 144 children at the Peshawar Army Public School in Dec 2014. It seems that terrorists gnawing at the civilian government in Islamabad are specially targeting schools and colleges which show their backward obscurantism which opposes education dear to modernisation and empowerment. Even Nobel-laureate Malala Yausanzai who championed education for girls in the Swat Valley under Taliban occupation was the target for Taliban bullets.
The terror strike at Bacha Khan University was relatively ineffective. But that does not diminish the menace. The Pakistan government should go all out to protect educational institution from terrorist savagery. Not only a better future for students is threatened, this tarnishes Pakistan’s global image. The Pakistan Army should also play ball. The future of the younger generation should not be at stake for whatever links it may have with terrorists. Imran Khan who has been ambivalent on the Pakistan-Taliban issue should not allow its westernised outlook to be vitiated on this issue. President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India have roundly condemned the attack at Bacha Khan University. It strikes an emotional chord in India as the University is named after Abdul Ghaffar Khan, respected in India as the Frontier Gandhi.