By Eric King-
A research assistant has shot and killed four staff members at a university in central Turkey, the university’s president said.Professor Hasan Gonen of Osmangazi University, who has manned the communication with media reports in relation to the incident said the gunman shot and killed a deputy dean, a secretary and two teaching staff at the university’s faculty of education. The university, based is in the city of Eskisehir is some 250km west of Ankara. The reason for the attack by the perpetrator identified as Volkan Bayar, has be given as a personal dispute. The attacker’s main target appeared to be the university dean, who was not in his office when the gunman arrived, he added.
Eskisehir, a city of nearly one million, is on the railway line between Ankara and Istanbul is not known for these sort of violent attack. The killings at Osmangazi University sent both students and teachers in a state of shock. Television pictures showed shocked staff and students gathering outside the university’s main entrance. Many ambulances were sent to the area.
The gunman, who was studying for a doctor’s degree, had been under investigation at the university after he accused a number of staff members of being followers of U.S-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey blames for a failed coup in 2016. Turkey has arrested tens of thousands of people for alleged links to the coup and dismissed more than 110,000 others from government jobs, including universities.Governor Ozdemir Cakacak said three prosecutors had been assigned to investigate the case. The allegation from the research assistant could have been easily investigated with respect to factual questions, instead of merely placing the gunman under investigation. Bayar’s decision to kill people at the University was pathetic, but it can be assumed he felt enormously aggrieved at the fact he was placed under investigation for acting as a whistle-blower.Out of the calamity he has brought to the University, an important thing to establish is whether indeed the individuals accused of affiliations with the notorious U.S based cleric were connected to the cleric in any way, and whether the University had sought immediate answers to the basis of Bayar’s allegations.
A research assistant studying a doctorate is not expected to resort to such lethal violence, and thorough investigation will require clear and detailed answers to the allegation made by Bayar and the extent to which those allegations were proved or disproved. It is easy for the focus of an investigation to be left to the realms of the police, but it is crucial to obtain a lot more information than just the appalling murder. Turkey has long been dogged by issues of extremism and the war against it, with a lot of its societal unrest also stemming from its longstanding political crises caused by running tensions between various factions in the political arena.
