PESHAWAR, Oct 10: The Taliban have started collecting donations from the University of Peshawar (UoP) campus.

“About a dozen Taliban came in two pickup trucks on September 29 and went to the Medina Mosque behind the hostel 1 and 9,” said a source in the police department. “They offered Isha prayers at the mosque and then one of them, sporting long beard, stood in the first row and addressed the people briefly.

“We are Muslims and the United States is our declared enemy. But you know the US and its allies are extremely powerful and we are finding it hard to fight against them. It’s your duty to support the jihad against the infidel forces and strengthen the fortress of Islam,” the source quoted the Taliban leader as saying.

About 200 audiences, after Taraveeh prayers, were reportedly present on the occasion. Sources said that the Taliban had sophisticated weapons but only two men stood near the gate while the rest were inside the mosque.

The Taliban leader reportedly continued his speech in Pashto, mostly focusing on the ‘ruthless’ bombardment and missile attacks by the US in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and killing of innocent people, particularly women and children. The man depicted the Taliban as the only ‘defenders’ of Islam and asked the people to contribute money to the ‘jihad’ if they themselves couldn’t take part in the war.

“Within 15 minutes, the Taliban collected Rs16,000 from those present there. They thanked the people and asked them to spread their message across the campus because they needed the financial and moral support of the educated people,” said an official of an intelligence agency. He said that the Taliban were not in hurry and seemed quite composed. Moreover, they were seen off by a few people.

According to sources, the matter was reported by the campus intelligence sleuths to the special branch police immediately, which asked the district police to investigate the matter. The matter was being investigated by the police.

“We have asked for explanations from the DSP and SHO of the campus police. Both the officials have been called by the SP on Thursday and they have been asked to keep an eye on the activities of the Taliban on the campus,” said a source in the district police, adding that it was a matter of concern that the Taliban had ultimately entered the campus despite the presence of more than 300 police personnel and 10 checkpoints inside the university.

A senior police officer said that they were planning to stop entry of the Taliban to the university in future by taking concrete measures including deployment of police outside campus mosques.

“We know that the Taliban had been encouraged by the donation, they collected in their first such effort. They (Taliban) would definitely come again,” he said, adding that they had asked prayer leaders of the university mosques to discourage the entrance of the Taliban to the mosques and inform the police about their activities. “We have got surety from the mosques that they would cooperate with the police in this regard,” he added.