The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall visited a women’s university in Pakistan today after being forced to cancel a trip to a madrassa in the country’s restive North West Frontier Province due to fears for their safety.

The royal couple were given a hastily-arranged tour of the Fatima Jinnah college in Rawalpindi instead of heading to the city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border, for fear of unrest after yesterday’s military air strike on another religious school just 60 miles away.

The assault, which killed around 80, was Pakistan’s most deadly attack on suspected al-Qaeda militants.

Pakistani officials said those killed were receiving terror training at the school in the Bajaur area but locals insisted that they had been innocent students, leading to violent anti-Western demonstrations across the region.

After strong advice from the Pakistani Government, the royal security team made a last-minute decision to cancel the Peshawar trip, where the Prince had been due to give a speech on religious moderation at a "new model" madrassa.

Instead, he delivered his talk – intended for an audience of young men - at the all-female university, located near Islamabad where the couple have been staying.

The Prince, who was born in November 1948, started by telling his new audience that he had been conceived shortly after the country’s independence in 1947 and subsequently felt that he had "somehow grown up with both Pakistan and India."

He spoke of his respect for Islam, insisting that it was human misinterpretation of sacred texts that led to violence and hatred rather than religion itself.

"The world is in desperate need of people who have moral courage, who are not afraid of standing up for truth and fairness and civilised values - especially at a time in the world’s history when ignorance and prejudice are so prevalent and so dangerous," he said.

"Religion has once again become a source of conflict and intolerance. One of the tasks of education must surely be to engender the acquisition of wisdom.

"In a secular age you hear again and again the accusation that religion is the cause of so much misery and strife in the world.

"However, religion itself is not the problem. It is surely human misinterpretation of the sacred texts handed down to us that can lead to such appalling misunderstanding and hatred."

He went on: "Will you, for instance, have the moral courage to stand up against the kind of mistaken and misguided leadership that can so easily set one community against another?

"Now looking about me I have a feeling that you, all very high-powered and intellectually gifted ladies, will have an important role to play in Pakistan’s future," he said.

The speech, although well-received by the female audience, would have had more resonance at the madrassa in the volatile North West Frontier Province, where extremism has flourished.

The Prince was said to be disappointed about the cancellation but made no mention of the conflict in his address. Clarence House insisted that the remainder of their planned engagements would continue as scheduled.

During the impromptu university visit, the Prince and the Duchess were shown around various classrooms before sitting in an open-air cafeteria with some of the young women. One, Zill Esuma, 21, said as she waited for them to arrive: "We didn’t know anything about it. We have not been told."

Asked if the students knew who the Prince’s wife was, she replied: "Lady Diana, we only know about Lady Diana."

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