In the wake of the attack, Pakistan on Friday chose to form a high-level committee to investigate security arrangements made on the day of the deadly terror attack on Bacha Khan University.
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“He would always help the students and he was the one who knew all their secrets because they would share all their problems with him”, 22-year-old geology student Waqar Ali said.
The group also killed 130 students at a school in Peshawar in 2014.
Pakistan has killed and arrested hundreds of suspected militants under a major crackdown launched after the December 2014 school attack, which is seen as having hardened Pakistan’s resolve to fight militants along its border with Afghanistan.
Doctors said 19 bodies and 14 injured people reached a government hospital in Charsadda, while rescue teams raced from Peshawar, about 20 miles away, and other nearby cities.
He said meetings of four-nation group on Afghanistan will continue and all issues related to the reconciliation process involving the Afghan government and Taliban will be resolved within its framework.
The main TTP organization has disavowed the Bacha Khan University attack, calling it “un-Islamic”.
As militant violence has risen in Pakistan over the last decade, educational institutions have been particularly vulnerable.
Flags on official buildings and the parliament are flying at half-mast, while children held candlelight vigils and prayed in schools across the country.
The army spokesman said that one facilitator, had provided the map of the university as he had earlier worked in the campus.
The school may have been targeted because it is named for a late secular icon, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a lifelong activist and contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi who shared his commitment to nonviolent resistance of British rule and opposed the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan.
To a question, the foreign office spokesman said Pakistan and the USA share objectives for peace and stability in the region as the two countries enjoy good relations and had long standing cooperation in various fields.
On Thursday, civilian security forces conducted a mock counter-terrorism drill at the Punjab University, which spread panic as most of the students were unaware of the drill being conducted.
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“COAS asked for their (Afghan leaders’ and Resolute Support Commander) cooperation in locating and targeting those responsible for this heinous act (attack on Bacha Khan University) and bring them to justice”.
