8 killed, over 50 injured in university attack in NW Pakistan

Xinhua News Agency

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At least eight people were killed and over 50 others injured when an unknown number of gunmen stormed a university in Pakistan's northwest district of Charsadda on Wednesday morning, reported local media.

Fazal Raheem, vice chancellor of Bacha Khan University which came under the attack, told local Urdu TV channel Geo that the killed include one professor, two students, four security guards and one policeman.

The killed professor was from the chemistry department of the university, said the report.

Geo also reported by quoting officials and hospital sources as saying that over 50 others were injured in the attack.

The number of attackers is not known at the moment, said police.

Army spokesman Asim Saleem Bajwa confirmed on his twitter account that four gunmen have so far been killed in the operation and the remaining ones are still in exchange of fire with the army commandos who have cornered them in certain blocks of the university.

Large contingent of security forces, including army, police and paramilitary forces Frontier Corps, have been dispatched to the university shortly after the attack was reported.

Three army helicopters have been employed to monitor the operation, said army sources.

All the injured have been shifted to local District Headquarter Hospital in Charsadda. Emergency has been declared at all the main hospitals in the district.

Hospital sources said the seriously wounded people have been shifted to the neighbouring city of Peshawar, capital of Pakistan' s northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack and was closely following the development of the incident while on a foreign tour, said the PM Office.