A group of at least six militants, using the cover of thick,
wintry fog, scaled the walls of the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, in the
northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
They then opened fire on students and teachers in classrooms
and hostels.
A security official unnamed by news agency Reuters said the
death toll could rise to as high as 40 as the army cleared out student hostels
and classrooms.
A spokesman for the rescue workers said the dead included
students, guards, policemen and at least one professor.
Firing had ended after several hours and four militants had been killed, the army said, in an attack that comes a little over a year after Taliban gunmen killed 134 students at a military-run school in nearby Peshawar.
3,000 students were present this morning on campus along
with 600 visitors attending a poetry recital to commemorate the death
anniversary of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a popular ethnic Pashtun independence
activist after whom the university is named.
Police, soldiers and Special Forces swiftly launched a
ground and air operation at the university.
Our four suicide attackers carried out the attack on
Bacha Khan University today," Umar Mansoor, a commander in the
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistani (TTP) militant group told news agency AFP by phone
from an undisclosed location.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, said 25 people were killed and 30 injured. 70 percent of students
had been rescued, said Deputy Inspector General Saeed Wazir to Reuters
Those who kill innocent students and civilians have no
religion, said Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
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