CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Bacha Khan University attack

terrorist incident in Pakistan in 2016

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 28, 2026
Entity authorityQ22127143 ↗
Source-derived summary

On 20 January 2016, four terrorists opened fire at Bacha Khan University (Pashto: باچا خان پوهنتون) near Charsadda, Pakistan. It is located in the Charsadda District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. At least 22 people were killed and over 20 others were wounded. Over 200 students were rescued from the premises, while the terrorists were killed by security forces. The Tariq Geedar Afridi faction of the Tehrik-i-Taliban, an internationally designated terrorist group, claimed responsibility for the attack.

On 23 January 2016, the Pakistani army laid the blame on a Taliban commander and the leader of its Tariq Geedar group, Khalifa Omar Mansoor alongside his deputy Qari Zakir. Mufti Khalid, one of the facilitator of the attack, was later killed in an ambush by unidentified person(s) in Kunar province of Afghanistan while he was travelling. Khalid was a central leader of Tehrik-i-Taliban and was a close associate of Mullah Fazlullah who was also killed in the same province.

Background

Pakistan has been affected by years of militant violence, which has seen hundreds of suspected militants killed and arrested under a crackdown launched.

Education and educational institutions have been frequently under attack since Taliban took hold of valleys of Swat in early 2000s.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bacha Khan University attack” as terrorist incident in Pakistan in 2016. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2016—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Bacha, Khan and University can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as terrorist incident in Pakistan in 2016. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q22127143. Authority coordinates are 34.137, 71.838. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bacha Khan University attack”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bacha Khan University attack primary sources, Bacha Khan University attack archive and Bacha research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bacha Khan University attack”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bacha Khan University attack” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.