SHEIKHUPURA, Oct 20: Twelve college students and a police official sustained injuries in a clash between them on Monday when the former were protesting against the death of a fellow in an accident on Sunday.

Umar Farooq, a First Year student of Jandiala Sher Khan college, fell from a moving bus on Friday and succumbed to his injuries in the DHQ hospital on Sunday.

Students of different colleges boycotted their classes and about 300 of them gathered on the Lahore-Sargodha road and pelted stones at public transport vehicles and damaged them. Traffic remained suspended for about two hours.

Later, they sneaked into the DHQ hospital and broke windowpanes. Some of them entered the emergency, surgical and dialysis units and damaged machinery.

According to the medical superintendent of the hospital the loss was about Rs3 million. He said police were informed as soon as the students entered the hospital but they came after an hour’s delay. In the meantime the students had damaged the machinery, he added.

On seeing the police, the students became infuriated and pelted stones at them as a result of which A division police station SHO Sadaqat Randhava sustained injuries. He was admitted to the hospital.

Police resorted to baton charge, injuring 12 students. They also claimed to have arrested six students. Some students were severely beaten up by them. They have registered cases against 10 students on the charge of damaging state property.

Markets and shopping centres in the city remained closed for four hours. Contingents from all the three police stations were called to normalize the situation.

Meanwhile, student leaders told this scribe that Umar died due to the negligence of doctors. If his condition was serious, he should have been referred to Lahore instead to keeping him in the hospital, they added.