Peshawar Our Political Bureau |
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the second deadliest terror attack in the country's recent history, calling it revenge for a major military offensive in the region.
A teenage survivor described how he played dead to escape the militants as they rampaged through the school, hunting for people to kill.
Shahrukh Khan, 16, said he and his classmates ducked below their desks when four gunmen burst into their room.
"I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me, this guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the bench beneath the benches," Khan told AFP from the trauma ward of the city's Lady Reading Hospital Khan decided to play dead after being shot in both legs, stuffing his tie into his mouth to stifle his screams.
"The man with big boots kept on looking for students and pumping bullets into their bodies. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again," he said.
"My body was shivering. I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me -I felt as though it was death that was approaching me."
The Lady Reading Hospital was thronged with distraught parents weeping uncontrollably as children's bodies arrived, their school uniforms drenched in blood.
Irshadah Bibi, 40, whose 12-yearold son was among the dead, beat her face in grief, throwing herself against an ambulance. "O God, why did you snatch away my son? What is the sin of my child and all these children?" she wept.
Police officials said the attack ended around 6.30 pm (1330 GMT), some eight hours after it began, with all six militants dead.
Chief army spokesman General Asim Bajwa said on Twitter the operation was "closing up", but that explosive devices planted by the militants were hampering clearance efforts.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif described the attack as a "national tragedy unleashed by savages".
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