Death toll from Charsadda varsity attack rises to 21

CHARSADDA: The death toll from a brazen terrorist attack on the Bacha Khan University rose to at least 21 as a man injured in the assualt succumbed to his wounds at the hospital on Thursday.

Administration officials at the Lady Reading Hospital, where Mohammad Ayaz was being treated, told Geo News that the deceased belonged to Mohmand tribal agency.

The administration at the Lady Reading Hospital confirmed that they were still treating two more persons wounded in the rampage at the Bacha Khan University on Wednesday.

According to details in the First Information Report registered for the attack, armed terrorists entered the varsity campus scaling the rear wall using the cover of thick, wintry fog around 8:30AM and fired first shot at security guards around 9:00AM.

Eyewitnesses said the four attackers also used the sugarcane fields behind the university as a cover. They cut the barbed-wire that fenced the campus perimeter and then shot dead a security guard. The militants made it to the hostels and other buildings amid the thick fog and then went on a rampage, firing randomly and killing at least 20 persons, including students, staff members, a professor, and causing injuries to at least 35 others.

That death toll has now risen to at least 21.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced a national day of mourning across the country being observed today, while the provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is observing three days of mourning, during which the national flag will fly at half-mast at government buildings.