ISLAMABAD/RAWALPINDI Sept 27: Tuesday proved a bloody day for the twin cities where unidentified gunmen shot dead four persons in targeted killings and escaped unchallenged.

A mother, her daughter and their driver were killed in Islamabad while the principal of a kindergarten school was gunned down in Rawalpindi. Revenge appeared to be behind both the crimes.

According to police of the two cities, the 38-year-old principal Akhtar-ul-Islam had earned ire for divorcing his wife to marry a teacher of his school, and the mother Najma Bibi, 45, was thrice  married and allegedly in sex trade.

Islamabad police said Najma had survived a murder attempt in July and had gone into hiding.

Her pursuers got her as she and her daughter Sidra were being driven home by their driver after a court appearance in Islamabad.

Gunmen were apparently shadowing them from the court and got them  when their car stopped near a roundabout in Sector F-10 to drop a fourth person travelling in it.

The gunmen swarmed the car and shot the three persons inside dead from close range and fled.

“Not a single bullet hit the body of the car,” said a policeman who reached the crime scene and took the victims to a hospital where they were declared dead.

Police investigators are trying to get information about the driver from his native Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, to determine whether he was a target or was killed because he could identify the killers at some stage.

In the attack on Akhtar-ul-Islam in Rawalpindi, a lady teacher saw the killers but was too frightened to say that as she was injured in her leg by their get-away firing.

“I cannot identify the gunmen as I was too confused and stunned by the flying bullets as they ran out while I was entering the school,” Ms Kiran said from her hospital bed.

Sub-inspector Jawad Shah of Rawalpindi police, who is leading the investigation into the cold blooded murder of Akhtar-ul-Islam in his K-Tech Kindergarten School in Dhoke Matkial locality, said she was the only person who could identify the killers but he failed to convince her to come out as a witness.

Meanwhile, Khurshid Ahmed, a cousin and husband of the sister of Akhtar-ul-Islam, has created a weird situation by nominating brothers of both the former and present wife of the murdered principal as suspects.

Police however have made no arrests yet, arguing that the motive had to be determined to reach the real killers.

Police sources said Akhtar-ul-Islam belonged to Hazara district and had divorced his first wife Faiza six weeks ago and married Nazima, a teacher in his school he had fallen in love.

In the case of Najma Bibi, the central character in the murders in Islamabad was reportedly seeking separation from her current, third husband of four years, and a share in his property. The husband, a lawyer has sued her of ‘kidnapping’ their daughter Sidra.

Islamabad police said her first husband was living in the USA.

She separated from her second six years ago who is living in Kamra.