On national television today in Pakistan, Hafiz Saeed, one of the world's most-wanted men, blamed India for the massacre of children at a Pakistan school and vowed revenge, reports NDTV.  

Controversial Bharatiya Janata Party MP Giriraj Singh, referring to the massacre of school-going children that took place in Peshawar, Pakistan, posted on twitter: whatever happening in Pakistan is called "friendly fight ".

Singh, who is known for making off-colour remarks, posted another tweet in which he wrote: We condemn any attack on human.

The attack on the army school that took place in Peshwar saw over 130 children dead, and several other injured. The suicide attackers claim to have targeted the children in a response to Pakistan army campaign in Waziristan.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today lifted a self-imposed moratorium on death penalty in terror related cases, a day after ruthless Taliban militants massacred at least 132 students and 16 staffers at an army-run school in Peshawar.                 

Polling personnel for 96 booths will be airdropped tomorrow in Dumka ahead of the fifth and final phase of polling in 16 constituencies on December 20. 

The teachers (circled) gunned down yesterday at the Army Public School, Peshawar.

As many as 141 people, of whom 132 were children, were massacred on Tuesday when heavily armed Taliban suicide bombers stormed a Pakistan army-run school in Peshawar, firing indiscriminately. Another 130 were injured, some critically so.

Dressed in para-military Frontier Corps uniforms, the seven Arabic-speaking terrorists entered the Army Public School on Warsak Road around 10 am (local time) from the rear of the building and went from classroom to classroom shooting innocent children indiscriminately in one of the most gruesome terror attacks anywhere.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations has said that the terrorists who attacked a school in Peshawar did not intend to take hostages but kill as many as possible.

The terrorists wore suicide vests and started shooting the moment they entered the school premises, he said.


This picture of the seven killers were posted by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Peshawar Attack: A Letter from 8-year old Bilal to his mother. Read

Tahira Kazi, the principal of the Army Public School and College in Peshawar, was set on fire by jihadists who slaughtered 142 people, most of them children. It is believed she was targeted because she's married to a retired army colonel, Kazi Javaid.

A student who survived the Peshawar school massacre describes an office assistant who was set on fire. "When I crawled to the next room, it was horrible. I saw the dead body of our office assistant on fire,' the boy said.

"She was sitting on the chair with blood dripping from her body as she burned."

It was not immediately clear how the female employee's body caught fire, though her remains were also later seen by an AFP reporter in a hospital mortuary.

Former chairman of the Tata Group, Ratan N Tata, who rarely tweets, did so today, saying: Deepest condolences go out to the families of the innocent students in Pakistan who were shot yesterday in an unforgivable massacre."

Tehreek-e-Insaaf leader Imran Khan says that all national parties, in fact, Pakistan's entire political spectrum are united in the fight against terrror.  

A student, holding a rose, takes part in a prayer for victims of the Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, in Karachi. At least 132 students and nine staff members were killed on Tuesday when Taliban gunmen broke into the school and opened fire, witnesses said, in the bloodiest massacre the country has seen for years. Akhtar Soomr/Reuters.

Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif in a press conference this evening, announced a committee, comprising members of all parties, to tackle the issue of terrorism in the country.

He said that the committee will come up with a plan within seven days.

Calling yesterday's attack in Peshawar an act of cowardice, Sharif said, "There is no difference between good Taliban and bad Taliban."

"The new action plan will target terrorists not just inside Pakistan, but even in border areas around the country," he said.

Sharif also said that the Army will continue the anti-terror Operation Zarb-e Azb as it has "broken the backbone of the terrorists".

Sharif vowed that Pakistan will chase the terrorists to their hideouts and eliminate them as it was high time to take to task all the elements "who martyred our children".

Sharif had yesterday called the assault on the school "a national tragedy" and declared three days of mourning.

Opposition stalwart Imran Khan, who has previously sought reconciliation with the Taliban, joined the litany of voices on Tuesday condemning the indiscriminate slaughter.

Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf (PTI) has adopted a policy of believing that the Pakistani Taliban are not American-funded but are alienated tribals who will relent only after the Americans are gone from Afghanistan and the Taliban government is restored in Afghanistan.

Also read: The fiction of good Taliban and bad Taliban

@HMOIndia National Archives of India has further informed that 04 files related to Azad Hind Government are available with them.

NSA Ajit Doval at Pak High Commn #PeshawarAttack: Never in my life I have heard that people can be so brutal that they can kill innocent children... the country is stunned... entire world should condemn this... totally indefensible. 

After a brief hiatus, oil companies today began supplying jet fuel to Spicejet after the troubled airline paid cash for the purchases. The budget carrier is getting fuel as per the terms of 'cash and carry' agreement put in place about six months back.

"We never stopped supply fuel. We were supplying fuel to them as late as yesterday late afternoon. They did not come to buy fuel after that and so we did not supply any. They came this afternoon and so we are supplying them," a top executive at a public sector oil firm said.

SpiceJet had been put on cash-and-carry about six months back, which meant fuel will be supplied to the aircraft only if they pay for it, they said.

Pakistan's front pages today... 

And that's the gate of the Army Public School in Peshawar which was attacked by Taliban gunmen. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Yesterday, around 8 pm IST, Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif's advisor Amir Muqam was targeted in a bomb attack on Ring Road in Peshawar when he was returning after paying a visit to the victims of the terrorist attack.

Muqam was returning from the Lady Reading Hospital where he had gone to meet the injured students. He was s unhurt but two of his security guards were injured in the attack.

Just in: NDTV reports two explosions outside the girls' college near Peshawar in Pakistan. The blasts occurred outside the Girls Degree College Dera Ismail Khan. Security forces have surrounded the college.  Details awaited.

Pic: A reporter walks past a damaged wall of the Army Public School, which was attacked by Taliban gunmen, in Peshawar. Fayaz Aziz/Reuters.

Our leaders have a lot to learn from Malala Yousufzai. She is clearly one of the most powerful messengers in raising awareness about education.

"This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who want education," her words reflect her deep concern for the millions who are out of school. Read

'@shazlicious Blaming India,US or Israel is useless. Blame the Extremist muslims.Blame the ones who support people like Hafiz Saeed & Lal Masjid.

Breaking down the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Take a look.

"Once you enter the gates of the school, there is a long straight road ahead of you, with a playground to the right of the road and the school wall to the left. Perhaps it would not seem so long now, 13 years later. In my mind's eye, the length of the road remains the same, but I struggle to recall it without the images of little dead bodies superimposed over it."

Asad Liaqat, a former student of the Army Public School in Peshawar, remembers a time when his alma mater was not synonymous with terror.
Read

Pic: A student of the Army Public School waits it out yesterday, outside his school as militants go on a rampage within. Khuram Parvez/Reuters

Over a hundred people are dead, many of them children. Even in the terror-stricken context of Pakistan, this attack is shocking. Read

The main motive was revenge, of course. But the Nobel Prize to Malala Yousufzai also contributed to the Taliban's anger.' Ahmed Rashid, who first wrote about the Taliban, speaks exclusively on the Peshawar school attack with Sheela Bhatt/Rediff.com. Read

Pakistan army chief General Raheel Sharif today dashed off to Afghanistan to seek the extradition of Taliban leader Mullah Fazlluah, whose group claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on an army school in Peshawar left 141 people, mostly children, dead.

General Sharif told Afghan authorities to take decisive action against the sanctuaries of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or else Pakistan would go for 'hot pursuit.'

The horrific attack left 141 people, including 132 children, dead, and was planned inside Afghanistan by the Mullah Fazlullah group.

The Afghan Taliban have condemned the attack on the Peshawar school in neighbouring Pakistan that left 141 dead in the country's bloodiest ever terror attack, saying killing innocent children was against Islam.

Survivors said militants gunned down children as young as 12 during the eight-hour onslaught in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said was revenge for a major military offensive in the region.

"The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the official name of the Taliban) has always condemned the killing of children and innocent people at every juncture," the Afghan Taliban, which often target civilians, said in a statement released late on Tuesday.

"The intentional killing of innocent people, women and children goes against the principles of Islam and every Islamic government and movement must adhere to this fundamental essence."

The Afghan Taliban are a jihadist group loosely affiliated to the Pakistan Taliban, with both pledging allegiance to Mullah Omar.

The Anti-Hijacking Bill has been introduced in the Rajya Sabha amid ruckus. This is a comprehensive bill that provides for death punishment for the offence when it results in the death of a hostage or a security personnel. It also provides life imprisonment and confiscation of the moveable and immoveable properties of the perpetrators.


Read more on the amended bill here.

Sudheendra Kulkarni @SudheenKulkarni  If #Modi Govt doesn't stop RSS/VHP parivar from organising #Gharwapsi events,it will be "Ghar Vapsi" (back to pavilion) for #BJP and PM Modi

Marvi Sirmed retweeted
Gen Raheel Sharif @PakArmyChief  Enough is enough, now strict action should have been taken against those who speak in favor of terrorists. #PeshawarAttack #CrushTTP

Sonia Faleiro @soniafaleiro  Pity #SmritiIrani cancelled Christmas, just when Santa was set to deliver her new brain.

After almost 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush told world leaders that they were either with or against terrorists.

Pakistan, a country riven by competing impulses in a violent corner of the globe, has remained a bit of both. The storming of a school in Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar yesterday, in which Taliban gunmen murdered 141 people, including 132 children, made clear the high price of that bargain to the country itself.  Read

In the wake of the terror attack on a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, the Indian government has asked all states to beef up security particularly in educational institutions.

"An advisory has been issued to the state governments," Home Minister Rajnath Singh told reporters outside Parliament House.

He was responding to queries about steps taken by the government to ensure security of schools in the wake of terror strike on a Peshawar school.

Though the minister did not elaborate, officials in the Home Ministry had said that the guidelines for schools will include asking them to prepare an escape plan for children in case of a terror attack, how to prevent hostage situation, how to raise alarm and shut doors and gates in case of an emergency.

"The earlier advisory was issued by the Home Ministry in 2010 to prominent schools and institutions after 26/11 Mumbai terror attack accused David Coleman Headley was arrested in the US. We will revisit the advisory and send it afresh considering the present situation," a Home Ministry official has said.

Pic: A man lights candles to mourn the victims from the Army Public School in Peshawar. Photograph: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

The front page of Pakistani newspaper, Dawn, today. 

There is no political, economic or even humanitarian logic in the government seeking to bail out SpiceJet, the airline next headed for death row.

Among other things, the Civil Aviation Minister, Ashok Gajapati Raju, has asked public sector banks to give the company working capital loans (of around Rs 600 crore) on the basis of assurances from the promoter, and the public sector oil companies are being asked to give the airline 15 days of credit for fuel, reports Business Standard.

Why, can't the billionaire Marans, who own the Sun TV Netowork, fork out Rs 600 crore till they find a buyer? Read

Flight services of cash-strapped SpiceJet were grounded this morning due to the oil companies refusing fuel supplies to the carrier for non-payment even as the airlines said it will resume operations by this evening. Not even a single SpiceJet flight could take off since this morning due to fuel supply issue with the oil companies.

However, COO Sanjiv Kapoor tweeted, "Flights scheduled to depart on or after 4pm today will operate. We apologise again for the disruptions."

The Civil Aviation Ministry had yesterday said it will request the oil companies and the airport operators to extend a 15-day credit facility to SpiceJet in a bid to save the airline from shutting down.

The Aviation Ministry had said it may request Indian banks/financial institutions to extended loans of upto Rs 600 crore to the airline as part of measures to keep the carrier functional. Besides, it will also request the Finance Ministry to permit external commercial borrowing (ECB) for working capital as special dispensation.

Former Jitender Bhargava tweets: Rs 14 crore dues shouldn't lead to disruption @SKapoorSpiceJet: @flyspicejet dues to oil cos 14cr; spend 3000cr+/yr on fuel,have never defaulted.

Suspected Taliban militants detonated a suicide bomb then stormed a bank branch in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, Reuters reports.

The militants engaged in a battle with security forces while an unknown number of civilians were inside, police said.

A Reuters witness at the scene heard the blast and the gunfire.

Employees who escaped said that when the attack happened, the bank was busy with government workers who had come to collect their salaries.

"According to our information, there were four Taliban, one of them detonated his explosives and three are fighting with security forces,' said Farid Ahmad Obaid, spokesman for Helmand's police chief. 

Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif's statement after the all-party meet held today in the aftermath of the terror attack. Sharif said all parties are united in the fight against terror. Beginning the meet on a sombre note, flanked by other MPs, Sharif says, "Yesterday's attack was the worst terror strike Pakistan has ever seen. It was certainly the most gruesome till date. Our condolences to the families who lost their children yesterday. We need to continue fighting terror, we will succeed. Let us remember these children when we fight terror. We should not let the sacrifice of our children go waste.

"Our aim is to rid Pakistan of jihad, but talks with Taliban have yielded no results. Our operations agaisnt the Taliban have yielded results."

Earlier in the day, Sharif lifted the moratorium on capital punishment in terrorism-related cases.


Pic: A mother mourns her son Mohammed Ali Khan, 15, a student who was killed during an attack by Taliban gunmen on the Army Public School, Peshawar yesterday. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Advisory issued to state governments in the wake of terror attack on Peshawar school: Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Pakistan lies. It hosted Osama bin Laden (knowingly or not). Its government is barely functional. It hates the democracy next door. It is home to both radical jihadists and a large and growing nuclear arsenal (which it fears the U.S. will seize). Its intelligence service sponsors terrorists who attack American troops. With a friend like this, who needs enemies? Read

Congress, TMC, NCP and Left walk out from the Lok Sabha accusing the government of misleading the House on schools being told to remain open on Christmas Day.

Rajya Sabha has been adjourned till 2 pm as opposition creates uproar demanding a reply by the PM to debate on communal violence.

Pakistan International Airlines crew has refused to operate flights to Peshawar, and United Arab Emirates' government has suspended all flights going to Peshawar.

Government buildings and Pakistani missions world over will have their flags lowered to half-mast for the three days of mourning and books of condolences will be opened. The Pakistan government has announced a three-day mourning in the aftermath of the massacre of 141 people including 132 children at the Army Public School yesterday.

AIBA bans India's foreign boxing coach B I Fernandez for two years, clears national coach G S Sandhu. Boxer L Sarita Devi received a one-year ban from the International Boxing Association (AIBA ) for refusing to accept her bronze medal at the Incheon Asian Games in October.

Omar Khorsani has called repeatedly for the most barbaric of attacks. He is very adept on social media. He is, in other words, eerily similar to the ISIS leader Baghdadi.

The crux of the Pakistan army's 'strategic asset' policy -- its policy of regarding militants as those that can help Pakistan pursue its regional interests -- is that Pakistan needs help in weakening India or in keeping its presence minimal in the region.'

Michael Kugelman reveals what the world can expect next from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the terrorists responsible for the Peshawar school massacre. Read the interview with Nikhil Lakshman/Rediff.com.

The Taliban attack on an army-run school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar shows a merciless disregard for human life and highlights the urgent need for protection of civilians in the area, a leading rights group has said.

At least 141 people, mostly children, were killed when Taliban suicide attackers stormed the school and began firing indiscriminately at students and teachers yesterday in one of the most shocking Taliban attacks in recent memory.

"There can be absolutely no justification for targeting children in this way. This unconscionable Taliban attack is a grave reminder that civilians in north-west Pakistan desperately need effective protection from militant groups," said David Griffiths, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for Asia-Pacific.

The Taliban have targeted students in Pakistan on numerous occasions, but this is by far their deadliest attack on a school. Since 2010, there have been at least four attacks on school buses including the one in which Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head in Swat in 2012.

There have been at least three Taliban attacks on schools this year, with one fatality, Amnesty added.


Pic: A mother mourns her son Mohammed Ali Khan, 15, a student who was killed during the attack by Taliban gunmen on the Army Public School. Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

Pakistani news channel Express News says the terrorists knew the entire layout of the school -- the location of the auditorium, classes of the older children, canteen -- and even that the kids were appearing for an exam. 

"I am a Muslim. But I do not belong to your idea of Islam. I also believe that you are not Muslims. This is for the simple reason that you just killed the idea of humanity by killing those innocent schoolchildren..."

Read Mohd Hussain Rahman's open letter to the Taliban.

Pic: A policeman stands beside empty coffins at a hospital in Peshawar. The city reportedly ran short of both coffins and blood. Photo credit: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

In other news, the Supreme Court has said that it will monitor the Indo-Bangladesh border fencing and the construction of border roads to prevent illegal migrants from Bangladesh. The SC has also directed the central government to expedite the discussions on the deportation of illegal migrants. The apex court has also directed the Center to take all necessary steps to check illegal Bangladeshis from entering our borders. The SC has also ordered that national registration of citizenship must be completed in border areas by 1st January 2016.

Read the report on Rediff.com: How Bangladeshis infiltrate into India

The International Boxing Association has banned boxer Sarita Devi for a year. AIBA has provisionally suspended India's woman boxer Laishram Sarita Devi for refusing to accept the bronze medal at the Asian Games podium ceremony.

Protesting against a controversial verdict, Sarita in an unprecedented move, had refused to wear the medal around her neck as she broke down on the podium during the ceremony for the 57-60 kg category.

@thekiranbedi  tweets: War against terror in Punjab became non-sparing after terrorists started to kill police families-Will armed forces in Pak respond similarly. 

Just in: Six foreign airlines refuse to fly over Peshawar. 

Writer, columnist and the niece of former Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto writes: "There is no word for a parent who buries a child. No equivalent of widow or orphan in any language that I know, we do not have the language to describe a parent who lays his child into the earth before his time. So with what tongue do we speak of the dead now? It is a sorrow too large to bear. But with sorrow, there is anger in Pakistan today." Read her column here

There is no class 9 in the Army Public School any more. All the students except for this boy, Dawood (surname not known) were killed in the Peshawar attack. Dawood, 15, is the only survivor.

Yesterday, DG ISPR Asim Bajwa, addressing a presser said that the terrorists who attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar, had no intention of taking hostages. Their sole aim was to kill as many people as possible. Bajwa said not a single eyewitnesses report said that any student or staff in the school was taken hostage.

The dead include 132 children and nine staff members of the school.

Bajwa said that 1099 children were registered at the school and that 960 people were rescued from the location.

PM Modi joins parliamentarians in observing two-minute silence in memory of Pakistan school terror victims. Schools all over the country observed a two-minute silence on Wednesday morning to mourn the loss of the young lives after Taliban terrorists laid siege to a school in Pakistan and gunned down students and teachers. 

Only a week ago, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, an event celebrated all over the subcontinent. Malala gave an interview the same afternoon to Barkha Dutt of NDTV and me from Oslo.

She announced that she would return to Pakistan in July 2015 and said she would build more schools in Pakistan.The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan was angry with Malala's announcement.

The TTP the same evening threatened to attack all those celebrating Malala's honour.Within a week, the TTP turned the happiness of Pakistanis into grief and mourning. It attacked the Army Public School in Peshawar on the morning of December 16, killing more than 130 students including their teachers.

Pakistan journalist Hamid Mir writes on Rediff.com. Read the full column here.

Students who escaped the massacre in the Army Public School said that they had seen bodies of their friends and classmates strewn all over the school and most had received bullets in the head. Doctors say they were shot at point blank range.

Of the 141 dead, 132 were students. A student who was at the first-aid training class said 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.

The operation of some flights and trains were affected in the national capital on Wednesday, as the visibility was reduced to 700 meters due to fog.

Flight operations of cash-strapped SpiceJet were grounded today due to non-supply of jet fuel by oil marketing companies. "Not even a single flight has taken off till this morning due to fuel supply issue with the oil companies," sources told PTI. 

Extending its losses for the third straight day, the rupee fell by 34 paise to trade at fresh 13-month low of 63.87 against the dollar in early trade today as the US currency strengthened overseas amid increased capital outflows.

Two car bombs exploded in a city in central Yemen on Tuesday afternoon, killing more than two dozen people, including at least 15 children returning home from school, according to a witness and Yemeni officials.

A seven-year-old boy died on Tuesday after being beaten brutally in a school in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, allegedly by his teacher. Araj, a nursery student, was allegedly thrashed for not doing his homework and not paying the school fee.

This morning's horrific news came from Pakistan. Taliban militants stormed a school in Peshawar, killing at least 145. Children were gunned down in their classrooms, or as they attempted to flee. Teachers and other staff members were murdered in cold blood.

Attacks against journalists have grown more "barbaric" in 2014 as 66 reporters were killed and kidnappings "soared," a leading media rights group said.

US President Barack Obama will sign into law a bill passed by Congress to tighten sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine, the White House has said, amid a dramatic run on the ruble.