Attack at University in Pakistan Leaves 19 Dead

Television images showed female students clutching hands as they fled the university, with traffic blocked on the roads of Charsadda as security forces rushed towards the campus.

The terrorist attack raised memories of the 2014 terrorist slaughter of more than 150 people, majority children, in an attack on a Peshawar school. It also prompted the Pakistani prime minister to pledge the country will wipe out the “menace of terrorism.’ Police said four attackers were also killed”.

Teachers in northwestern Pakistan have been allowed to carry firearms in the classroom since the Taliban launched at attack at a school in nearby Peshawar in December 2014.

He said the operation had ended and security forces were clearing the area, with most of the student victims shot dead at a hostel for boys on the Bacha Khan University campus in Charsadda. The attackers were later contained inside two university blocks where the troops killed four attackers, the army said.

(Vatican Radio) The Catholic aid agency Caritas Pakistan has condemned Wednesday’s deadly attacks by Islamic militants at a university in the northeast of the country.

Omar Mansoor, Peshawar school attack mastermind and a commander of the Hakimullah Mehsud faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistani (TTP), claimed responsibility for today’s assault.

Earlier, a spokesman for the provincial ruling party, Mushtaq Yousufzai, spoke to reporters shortly after visiting the scene and said the attack left about “25 to 30 people”, mostly students, dead. Army chief General Raheel Sharif visited the campus after the police and soldiers cleared the area, according to spokesman Asim Bajwa.

Mr Wazir said 70 per cent of students had been rescued.

According to its website, Bacha Khan University was established in the summer of 2012, with the goal of preparing young Pakistanis to participate in a global economy.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is now in Davos for the World Economic Forum, issued a statement condemning the attack. The group has not yet claimed responsibility for this attack.

Pakistani Taliban militants were also responsible for the attempted murder of Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who was targeted for standing up for girls’ rights to education and went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize.