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Four people were killed and three others were wounded on Thursday in a shooting at the Osmangazi university in Turkey’s northwestern province of Eskisehir, the school’s rector and local media said.
The gunman, a researcher at the university, shot dead the assistant dean, faculty secretary, lecturer, and a staff member from the education faculty of the university, rector Hasan Gonen told Turkish media.
Gonen said the assailant, identified as Volkan Bayar, entered the university’s education faculty with a gun and shot the four university staff members.
Gonen said he believed the assailant was looking for the dean, who was not in the building at the time, when he opened fire.
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“This person had claimed that some members of the university were members of Feto, and he had made similar claims [previously] in court,” Gonen said, using an acronym denoting the network of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Footage from the scene showed several police officers and medical staff in the area, as students and university staff were treated at ambulances.
Police had detained the gunman, the state-run Anadolu news agency and other media reported.
A reporter for Anadolu, speaking on CNN Turk, said the attacker had surrendered instead of trying to escape.
Coup attempt
Turkey’s government accuses Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, of having orchestrated the abortive July 2016 attempt by parts of the armed forces to topple president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
More than 250 people were killed in the coup bid. Gulen denies involvement. Gonen said the gunman’s claim was being investigated by authorities prior to Thursday’s shooting.
Ayse Aypay, a professor at the university, told Turkish media that some members of staff had “repeatedly filed complaints” about the gunman. “Who will pay the price for protecting him now?” Aypay said.
She said she would file a criminal complaint to higher educational authorities over their alleged failure to deal with complaints about the suspect.
– Reuters