Sounds of explosions and gunfire were heard from the campus where a number of students are still reportedly being held hostage.
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Local journalist Khalid Khan tweeted army troops “with heavy weapons” were moving into the university.
Wednesday was the 28th anniversary of the university’s founder, Abdul Ghaffar Khan – a 1920s Pashtun independence activist and pacifist also known as Bacha Khan.
A disciple and close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, Bacha Khan was also fondly called the “Frontier Gandhi”.
Explosions were heard inside and Pakistani TV stations aired images of heavily armed security personnel entering the compounds as female students ran for their lives.
In addition to the victims, Pakistan police said that four attackers had been killed at Bacha Khan University in the town of Charsadda, located 21 miles outside the city of Peshawar.
A Pakistani official says the army and police have finished their operation to clear Taliban gunmen following an attack on a university campus in the country’s northwest.
Security forces had earlier conducted search operations in adjoining areas and claimed that four wanted men had been arrested.
They wrote: “Dr hamid chemistry professor killed during attack #Bacha khan university”.
Shabir Khan, a lecturer in the English department, said he was about to leave his hostel for the department when firing began.
Police inspector Wazir said 70 percent of students had been rescued.
Speaking after today’s attack, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said: “We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland”.
Charsadda is a district in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and has been a scene of several militant attacks during the past decade.
Militants stormed Peshawar’s Army Public School on Dec 16, 2014, killing at least 144 people ─ most of whom were children.
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The Pakistani military has for years battled militants, including the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida-linked groups, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a rugged mountainous region bordering Afghanistan.
