Pakistan shuts Quetta university after attacks

Pakistan’s education authorities have shut down a women’s university at the center of recent deadly twin attacks in the troubled southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.

The education authorities said in a statement on Monday that Sardar Bahadur Khan University would remain closed for an indefinite period, Pakistan’s Geo TV network reported.

The university is the only all-female university in the volatile southwestern Balochistan Province.

Meanwhile, the Balochistan Bar Council has also announced boycott of court proceedings across the region over the unprecedented tragedy.

The developments came after heavily armed militants bombed a bus carrying female university students in Quetta, the capital of the Balochistan Province, on Saturday afternoon, leaving 14 students dead and 19 others wounded.

About 90 minutes later, the militants attacked the hospital in the city treating survivors from the bus bombing, killing 11 more citizens and injuring 17 people.

Nurses, hospital security personnel and a senior city official were among those killed in the standoff between the attackers and security forces at Quetta’s Bolan Medical Complex.

The outlawed Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for Saturday’s massacre in Quetta.

In January at least 81 people, mainly Shia Muslims, were killed in a bomb attack in the lawless city.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered an alliance with the US in the so-called war on terror.

Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy sweeping across the country.