GUJRANWALA, April 18: Two persons were shot dead and six others, two of them passers-by, injured when two rival groups exchanged fire at Nat Kalan village’s Gakkhar town on Friday.

Reports said Rajput and Jat groups had been at dagger’s drawn for many years. Some members of both the groups on Thursday exchanged harsh words, but the elders mediated among them. On Friday, the two groups exchanged fire. Waheed and Munawwar died instantly while Khurram, Siddiq, his son Yousaf, Shahid, and two passers-by Ajmal and Nadeem were injured.

The injured were taken to the DHQ hospital where the condition of Khurram was stated to be critical.

On receiving information, Wazirabad ASP Waqar Ahmad reached the spot and removed the bodies to the Wazirabad DHQ hospital for autopsy.

Missing record: A number of students of private schools are facing a great deal of difficulty in getting admissions to the state-run institutes, as relevant record is found missing from the DEO’s office.

Sources told this correspondent on Friday that the defunct directorate of elementary and secondary education had registered private schools, and only the DEO was authorized to verify the certificates of the private schools’ students interested in getting admissions to the government schools.

After abolition of the elementary and secondary education directorate, the relevant records were shifted to the DEO’s office. The sources said some of the documents had been found missing from the DEO’s office. Consequently, they said, the students had been facing problems as their school leaving certificates were not being verified by the DEO without record.

The DEO said the officials of the defunct directorate might have taken the record with them. However, he said, new record of the registration of private schools was being prepared.