LAHORE: Students say the blood of innocent people will eventually drown the perpetrators of terror and violence.

Orators from52 educationalinstitutions of the country condemned the Lahore attack while addressing `21st Government College University Parliamentary Style Debates 2016` here on Monday.

Expressing their resolve to counter cowardly acts of terrorists they said they would combat the faceless enemy with unity and education.

One-minute silence was also observedin the Knalrounds ofthe four-day debates to show solidarity with the victim families. The contest was organised by the GCU Debating Society.

The English and Urdu topics in the finals were `This House wouldremove all physical manifestations of racists legacy in universities and public spaces` and `This House believes that formation of student unions would result in political maturity of students.

Although the topics of the contest were different, the debaters vented out their anger by speaking against terrorists who took 72 lives in a suicide blast at the Gulshan-iIqbal park.

GCU Debating Society generalsecretary Raza Gillani said the speeches of orators were overwhelmed with grief and anger over the terrorist attack. `Even they deviated from their topics to condemn this cowardly act at the public forum,` he said.

Ismael Sherwani from the Punjab University said: `We are in great pain due to the loss of life of so many people especially the children in the tragedy. We pay tribute to themsaying every terrorist attack has united us more as a nation.

Orator Hafiz Usman Tanveer from LUMS said terrorists were coward and they chose soft targets.

Sana Mansoor from GCU called upon the government to beef up the security of all public places.

She said it was the right time to weed out the menace of terrorism from the country.

She said the political leadership and armed forces should be on the same page as the whole nation was standing by them.

GCU Debating Society president Afzan Munir said that retrogressive forces could not impose its will on the country.

The Public Spealcing Forum was declared the best English team of the competition and awarded the prestigious `Prof Khalid Aftab Trophy`.

The PSF beat Lahore Universityof Management Sciences (LUMS) in the finals. At the individual level, the Punjab University orator, Hamid Raza, secured the `Syed Muhammad Ali Abbas Shield` for the best English speaker, and Abrar Ahmed Butt from the University of Engineering and Technology Lahore (UET) was declared the best Urdu speaker of the contest.

The team trophy of Urdu Parliamentary Debates was also won by the PSF.

Prof Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed, an eminent Swedish political scientist of the Pakistani origin, was the chief guest.

The debates were adjudicated by eminent former orators AnwarulHaq, Muhammad Umer Khan, Zulgarnain Cheena, Moaviz Siddique Nizami, SaadulHassan, Ahmed Chaudhry, Zahid Ali, Abdullah Sherdil Khan and Misbah Mukhtar.