Pakistan mourns after Taliban Peshawar school massacre
The BBC's Mishal Husain was one of the first broadcasters to go inside the school
The
Pakistani city of Peshawar is burying its dead after a Taliban attack
at a school killed at least 132 children and nine staff.
New images from the school show the brutality of the attack,
with pools of blood on the ground and walls covered in pockmarks from
hundreds of bullets.Mass funerals and prayer vigils for the victims are currently under way.
Gunmen had walked from class to class shooting students in the Pakistani Taliban's deadliest attack to date.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif declared three days of mourning over the massacre, which has sparked national outrage.
He also announced an end to the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism cases, which correspondents say is a move aimed at countering a view held by many Pakistanis that many terror suspects end up evading justice.
World leaders have also voiced disgust at the attack, which even the Afghan Taliban have criticised.
Images taken by a BBC team inside a classroom show the level of destruction
An office belonging the school principal was hit by a suicide bomber
The army has been working through the night to clear the premises of explosives.
I am standing now at the bottom of the white stone steps that lead up to the auditorium. There are blood stains running right down the steps and towards the auditorium itself.
There is a child's shoe on one of the steps. The auditorium, where children were taking exams, was one of the places within the school grounds that the militants first targeted.
As I peer in now, the chairs that the children were sitting on are upturned, the place has been turned upside down and again I can see the blood stains on the floor right around me.
Mr Sharif also convened a meeting of all parliamentary parties in Peshawar to discuss the response.
Afghan role Meanwhile, Pakistan's army chief General Raheel Sharif is in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on a surprise visit to discuss security co-operation aimed at tackling the Taliban insurgency.
All seven attackers were killed during the eight-hour siege at the school
But the TTP said the attack had been masterminded by its military chief in the Peshawar region, who it said had been in touch with the gunmen throughout the assault.
A TTP spokesman told the BBC they had deliberately killed older pupils and not targeted "small children".
BBC correspondents say the Taliban statement is being seen as damage limitation after the attack was universally condemned in Pakistan for its brutality.
The TTP also repeated its earlier claim that only six attackers were sent, contradicting official accounts that seven gunmen were killed. The militants say the attack was revenge for the army's campaign against them, and that they chose the school as a target because their families had also suffered heavy losses.
Scenes of devastation Reporters visiting the school for the first time saw pools of blood marking the floor and torn notebooks, clothing and shoes among the debris.
"This is not a human act,'' military spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa said during a tour of the school, the Associated Press reports. "This is a national tragedy."
Upturned chairs and blood stains left in the wake of the attack at the school's auditorium
Funerals for the victims began hours after the attack on Tuesday and continued on Wednesday
Many schools in Pakistan closed as a mark of respect, with those remaining open holding special prayers
Gunmen then went from room to room at the military-run school, shooting pupils and teachers where they found them in a siege that lasted eight hours, survivors say.
A total of 125 people were wounded at Peshawar's Army Public School, which teaches boys and girls from both military and civilian backgrounds. All seven attackers were killed, while hundreds of people were evacuated.
Some wounded students remain at the main hospital in Peshawar
Soldiers are guarding the gates of the school in Peshawar after the siege
There was anger at this candlelit vigil for the victims in Karachi, Pakistan
"I think I passed out for a while. I thought I was dreaming. I wanted to move but felt paralysed. Then I came to and realised that actually two other boys had fallen on me. Both of them were dead," he told the BBC.
Zulfiqar Ahmad, 45, the head of the mathematics department who was shot four times during the attack told the BBC he did not believe any of the 18 students in his class had survived.
The victims are also being mourned elsewhere, with India's parliament observing a minute's silence in their honour.
India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his country's "deepest condolences".
Malala Yousafzai, the 17-year-old who was shot by the Pakistani Taliban for championing girls' rights to education, also condemned "these atrocious and cowardly acts".
School pupil Mohammad Baqair lost his mother, a teacher, in the attack
Some of the injured were carried to hospital in people's arms
22 September 2013: Militants linked to the Taliban kill at least 80 people at a church in Peshawar, in one of the worst attacks on Christians
10 January 2013: Militant bombers target the Hazara Shia Muslim minority in the city of Quetta, killing 120 at a snooker hall and on a street
28 May 2010: Gunmen attack two mosques of the minority Ahmadi Islamic sect in Lahore, killing more than 80 people
18 October 2007: Twin bomb attack at a rally for Benazir Bhutto in Karachi leaves at least 130 dead. Unclear if Taliban behind attack
The Taliban has a history of targeting large crowds of civilians in Pakistan
The Afghan Taliban are currently stepping up their own attacks in Afghanistan and share roots with the Pakistani Taliban and usually share the same ideology too, the BBC's Mike Wooldridge reports from Kabul.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters are thought to have died in the recent Pakistan army offensive in the Khyber area and North Waziristan, regions close to the Afghan border.
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