Deputy Inspector General Saeed Wazir said at least three students had been killed in the attack, and a spokesman for the rescue workers said eight bodies had been recovered so far.
Four of the gunmen have been killed by security forces and the army has contained the militants to two blocks inside the university, a spokesman for the army said on twitter. Police said earlier that other attackers were believed to be at large on the second and third floors of the campus buildings.
The militants, using the cover of thick, wintry fog, scaled the walls of the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, before entering buildings and opening fire on students and teachers in classrooms and hostels, police said.
Police inspector Wazir said 70 percent of students had been rescued.
‘All students have been evacuated from the hostels, but militants are still hiding in different parts of the university and some students and staff are stuck inside,’ he said, adding that it was unclear how many gunmen were involved.
Television footage showed soldiers entering the campus as ambulances lined up outside the main gate and anxious parents consoled each other.
Pakistan, which has suffered from years of militant violence, has killed and arrested hundreds of suspected militants under a major crackdown launched after a massacre of 134 school children in December 2014 in the northwest.
The 2014 school attack by six gunmen believed linked to the Pakistani Taliban hit a raw nerve in Pakistan and was seen as having hardened Pakistan's resolve to fight jihadist militants along its lawless border with Afghanistan.
Vice Chancellor Fazal Rahim told reporters that the Bacha Khan University teaches over 3,000 students and hosted an additional 600 visitors on Wednesday for a poetry recital.
Shabir Khan, a lecturer in the English department, said he was about to leave the hostel for the department when firing began.
‘Most of the students and staff were in classes when the firing began,’ Khan said. ‘I have no idea about what's going on but I heard one security official talking on the phone to someone and said many people had been killed and injured.’
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Gunmen attack university in NW Pakistan
AFP/ Peshawar
Gunmen have attacked a university in northwestern Pakistan, leaving at least three people hurt, and are still on the rampage, security and school officials told AFP Wednesday in the latest assault to hit the militant-infested region.
Security forces have reached the Bacha Khan university in Charsadda, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the city of Peshawar, the military confirmed, as police said they had deployed armoured vehicles.
Television images showed female students clutching hands as they fled the university, with traffic blocked on the roads of Charsadda as security forces rushed towards the campus.
‘There is firing inside the university at Charsadda,’ Saeed Wazir, a senior police official, told AFP.
The university has been cordoned off, said Nasir Durrani, police chief of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital.
Fazal Raheem Marwat, the university vice chancellor, said at least three people had received unspecified injuries.
‘There are male and female staff members and students on the campus,’ he said, adding he had been on his way to work when he was informed of the attack.
‘There was no announced threat but we had already beefed up security at the university.’
The gunmen had stormed the campus on its southern side, he said.
Nick Mohammed, security chief at the university, said the attackers had entered close to a campus guest house.
He confirmed that police and military had arrived with firing continuing on campus, and that at least three people have been hurt so far.
Peshawar was the location of Pakistan's deadliest ever extremist attack, when Taliban gunmen stormed an army-run school in December last year and killed more than 150 people, most of them children, in an hours-long siege.
The attack on the school prompted a crackdown on extremism in Pakistan, with the military increasing an offensive against militants in the tribal areas where they had previously operated with impunity.
On Tuesday, a suicide attack at a market on the city's outskirts killed 10 people as well as the bomber.
