Image source, Reuters

Outpourings of grief are taking place all over Peshawar well into the night as the city tries to come to terms with one of Pakistan's deadliest terror attacks.

Image source, AP

Schools across Peshawar were evacuated after the attack as a precaution. Here, a plainclothes security officer is seen taking pupils to safety.

Thousands of Indians are sending a message of support to Pakistan on Twitter in the wake of the Taliban school massacre in Peshawar, BBC Trending reports.

emails: I cannot find words to describe what we have lived today here. My 15-year-old son was wounded by a bullet. He was hit on the left side of the head, above the ear. He is in hospital now and doctors say the wound is not serious. The bullet just touched his head. I was in the office when I heard that something had happened at the school. I was hoping to find my son but I could not go in, security were not allowing anyone to do so. Thankfully, I got a call from the hospital to say that my son was there.

M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Islamabad

reports on the backlash against the Pakistani Taliban after the attack.

Sajid Khalid - who lives in the British city of Birmingham - attended the school in Peshawar as a child and his relatives were there during the attack. "I was shocked because most of our family, kids, they live locally - just two miles away, and most of the students they study in the school," he told the BBC. "So totally I was horrified. Straight away I just rang my brother. He was crying. I thought - is everything OK? He says no, my kids are OK but I'm in hospital with the other kids - like from seven to 14-15 year olds and dead bodies everywhere."

tweets:, external The #PeshawarAttack makes you want to sit down and cry some where.. My head can't stop thinking of those little souls.!

More from Shahrukh Khan: "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."

Teenager Shahrukh Khan describes how he managed to survive the attack. "I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me, this guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the benches," he told the AFP news agency. He says he decided to play dead, despite being shot in both legs, by stuffing his tie into his mouth to stifle his screams.

reports that the attackers entered the school with supplies, preparing for a long haul.

Image source, Reuters

Women mourn their relative Mohammed Ali Khan - a 15-year-old student who was killed during the attack - at his house in Peshawar.

More from British PM David Cameron (see 16:12 entry). He says: "The scale of what has happened in Pakistan simply defies belief. It is a dark, dark day for humanity when something on this scale happens with no justification. There is not a belief system in the world that can justify such an act. I think what this shows is the worldwide threat that is posed by this poisonous ideology of extremist Islamist terrorism."

Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif has announced three days of national mourning, the Pakistani newspaper The Express Tribune , externalreports. The paper's website has changed the usual red colour of "The Express" words of its title into black, in what appears to be a sign of mourning. (BBC Monitoring).

Image source, Reuters

Funerals have been taken place across Peshawar following the school attack.

More from army spokesman Maj Gen Asim Bajwa: "[The militants] were contained and pushed back [before they were] confined into one block, where they were killed finally in the evening. "There were about 1,100 students and staff who were registered in this school. Out of them, 960 have been rescued by our security forces, especially the special services group."

Here is the latest BBC report of what we know about the massacre.

"My son was in uniform in the morning. He is in a casket now,'' distraught father Tahir Ali is quoted by the AP news agency as saying. Speaking while collecting the body of 14-year-old son Abdullah from hospital, he said: "My son was my dream. My dream has been killed."

The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil in Peshawar has just spoken to Said - one of the survivors of the attack. Said, who was shot in the arm, said he survived by hiding under the chair.

More comment from the Taliban in their efforts to justify the attack: "What about our kids and children?" alleged commander Jihad Yar Wazir is quoted as asking the Daily Beast, external. "The parents of the army school are army soldiers and they are behind the massive killing of our kids and indiscriminate bombing in North and South Waziristan. To hurt them at their safe haven and homes - such an attack is perfect revenge."

The attackers "didn't take any hostages initially and started firing in the hall" as soon as they entered the school premises, military spokesman Maj Gen Asim Bajwa says.