A day after self-styled Islamic cleric, Man Haron Monis held and killed some hostages at the Sydney’s Lindt Chocolat Cafe, a similar and more horrible attack occurred at a Peshawar school, in Pakistan on Tuesday.
Wearing military uniforms and strapped with explosives, Pakistani authorities said the heavily armed Islamist militants attacked the Army Public School and Degree College in the North-Western city of Peshawar at about 11:00 a.m. local time on Tuesday. According to BBC, the attack left at least 135 people dead, most of whom were children.
An unnamed military source told Reuters news agency that nine gunmen had been killed and seven soldiers wounded, while the Pakistan’s APP news agency reported that 89 children were among the 135 confirmed dead, adding that a further 114 people were injured.
The deadliest attack ever by the Taliban in Pakistan, the militants were reported to have been more intent on killing as many students as possible, rather than taking hostages, as was initially thought.
Claiming responsibility for the attack, the Taliban said it was an act of retaliation for Pakistan’s offensive targeting militants in the country’s North-Western tribal region, near the Afghan border.
According to Reuters, Taliban spokesman, Muhammad Umar Khorasani said: “We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain.”
The militants were reported to have scaled walls to get into the school and set off a bomb at the start of the assault, and then went from one classroom to another, shooting indiscriminately,” children who escaped said.
One boy told reporters he had been with a group of 10 friends who tried to run away and hide. He was the only one to survive, while others described seeing pupils lying dead in the corridors. One local woman said her friend’s daughter had escaped because her clothing was covered in blood from those around her and she had lain pretending to be dead.
Seventh-grader, Mohammad Bilal told CNN that he was sitting outside his classroom taking a math test when the gunfire erupted.
“They were making exclamations of “God is great.” Then one of them proclaimed that “A lot of the children are under the benches; kill them.” Another student, 14-year-old Ahmed Faraz, while lying on the sick bed at Lady Reading Hospital said: “They climbed the benches and started firing at the children.”
Most of those killed were between the ages of 12 and 16, said Pervez Khattak, the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital.
By 7:00 p.m., the Lady Reading Hospital had already taken in 31 dead boys and another 45 injured boys, it was reported.
A source told NBC: “They burnt a teacher in front of the students in a classroom. They literally set the teacher on fire with gasoline and made the kids watch.”
It was also reported that one suicide bomber blew himself up in a room containing 60 children.
Over 1,000 schools have been destroyed by the Pakistan Taliban since 2010, but Tuesday’s massacre was not just the worst atrocity carried out on a school, but on any target.
Mudassar Abbas, a physics laboratory assistant at the school told MailOnline that some students were celebrating at a party when the attack began. “I saw six or seven people walking class-to-class and opening fire on children,” he said.
Mudassir Awan, another employee at the school, said he saw at least six people scaling the walls of the building, but initially thought little of it.
“We thought it must be the children playing some game. But then we saw a lot of firearms with them. As soon as the firing started, we ran to our classrooms. They were entering every class and they were killing the children,” he said.
A hospital doctor treating injured children said many had head and chest injuries, BBC said.
Irshadah Bibi, a woman who lost her 12-year-old son, was seen beating her face in grief, throwing herself against an ambulance.
“O God, why did you snatch away my son?” AFP news agency quoted her as saying.
Thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in militant violence in recent years, but the attack on Tuesday has been described by many as causing unprecedented shock. Many of the students were the children of military personnel. Most of them would have been aged 16 or under.
In a tweet, military spokesman, General Asim Bajwa, called the attack a “ghastly act of cowardice in killing innocents” that, in his view, proves that the Taliban are “not only enemies of (Pakistan) but enemies of humanity.”
“They have hit at the heart of the nation, but they can’t in any way diminish the will of this great nation,” Bajwa said.
Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif condemned the assault, calling it a “national tragedy” and declared three days of national mourning.
Sharif, who arrived in Peshawar on Tuesday, said the “government will not be deterred by this barbaric act” and vowed to continue military operations against the militants.
Pakistani teenager, Malala Yousafzai, joint winner of this year’s Nobel peace prize for her education campaign work, said on Tuesday that she was heartbroken by news of the attack. Malala, 17, was shot in the head on a school bus by the Taliban in 2012 and won global acclaim for her passionate advocacy of women’s right to education.
“I am heartbroken by this senseless and cold-blooded act of terror in Peshawar that is unfolding before us,” Malala, who now lives in central England, said in a statement. “Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this.”
The White House, in a statement, condemned the “horrific attack on the school.
According to VOA, United States Secretary of State, John Kerry condemned the shooting, saying, “This act of terror shakes all people of conscience.”
He added that the perpetrators must be brought to justice.
Also reacting to the incident, India’s Minister for Home Affairs, Rajnath Singh, said on Twitter, “This dastardly and inhuman attack exposes the real face of terrorism.”
A United Nations official in Pakistan said the massacre was an attack on children’s education and showed “disregard of the most fundamental principles of humanity.”
Calling the attacks “inhumane,” United States Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Olson expressed solidarity with Pakistan, saying “few have suffered more at the hands of terrorists and extremists than the people of Pakistan.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted on Tuesday: “The news from Pakistan is deeply shocking. It’s horrifying that children are being killed simply for going to school.
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