Most of the students at the army-run school in Peshawar were shot in the head from point blank range by the ruthless Taliban suicide attackers, in one of the most gruesome attacks against children in recent years.
At least 132 students and 9 staffers were killed when the attackers wearing para-military Frontier Corps uniforms stormed the Army Public School on Warsak Road and started indiscriminate firing on them on Tuesday.
Quoting students, Dawn reported that the attackers scaled the boundary wall from the adjacent graveyard and started firing while moving towards the classrooms and auditorium.
"Most of the students have received bullets in the head," Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani said, giving out chilling account of the attack.
The parents, who usually wait outside the school to pick their children at the closing time, were seen crying outside hospitals.
Besides the parents and relatives, the people visiting the hospitals were also seen mourning on seeing the bodies and injured students in their blood-stained school uniform.
“I saw 17 bodies at the CMH (Combined Military Hospital) and all of them had received bullets in the head,” said an eyewitness. He said that some of the bodies were mutilated.
Mohammad Zeeshan, a student of grade-7, told Dawn that he and many others were getting first aid training in the school hall when they heard the gunfire.
"Our trainer told us to lie down on the floor," he said, adding that in the meantime the terrorists entered the hall.
Zeeshan said the terrorists started shooting the students in their heads at a close range.
"They killed our class-fellows and then left us in the main hall. I received a bullet in my foot," he said.
Another injured student said that terrorists were firing on the students in classrooms.
“They also killed one of our teachers,” he said.
