GUJRAT: A second-year student was killed and a fellow student sustained injuries in firing by another group of students near Rehmania Bridge along the old GT Road in Rehmania police precincts on Tuesday.

Both the deceased and injured students were enrolled at Punjab College Gujrat, while the alleged assailants were reportedly affiliated with Government Swedish College.

Reports said a bus from Punjab College carrying students from Dunga Road villages, was on its way when it was intercepted by a group of students from Swedish College.

A conflict erupted, leading to an attack on the students on the bus, who also put up resistance. In response, the assailants resorted to firing at the bus, leaving two students injured.

The assailants fled the scene, and both wounded students identified as Laraib Doga (18) from Joura Karnana village and Zainul Abedin Butt from Dinga, were shifted to Aziz Bhatti Shaheed Teaching Hospital (ABSTH) by Rescue 1122.

Laraib suffered a critical head injury and succumbed to his wounds. Zain sustained a bullet wound in his leg and was said to be stable.

Later, the students from Punjab College blocked the GT Road in protest and dispersed after the arrival of the police at the scene.

They alleged that students from Swedish College had been repeatedly intercepting their bus in recent days, leading to clashes. Despite their complaints, the authorities had failed to take any action.

They said on Tuesday the rival students again intercepted them and tried to make video of torture to later upload it on the social media; however the bid was resisted which resulted in the firing of the suspects.

Police said it had collected the bullets empties and other evidence from the crime scene and started investigation into the incident.

However, a case was yet to be lodged till the filing of this report.

It was learnt that the deceased student was the lone son of the parents. Earlier around four months ago, two students had been shot dead by the rival groups in separate incidents in Gujrat.

HOUSE ROBBERY: Robbers looted cash and valuables worth around Rs2 million from the house of an overseas Pakistani at Mararrian village in Industrial Estate police precincts.

As per a police source, robbers barged into the house of Kaneez Fatima, whose husband lived in Spain since long. The robbers made the family members hostage at gun point and locked them in a room.

They collected Rs600,000 cash and gold ornaments worth Rs1.2 million, besides other valuables from the house and fled away.

On being informed of the incident, a police team reached the spot and collected forensic evidence from the scene.

The police later registered a case against unidentified robbers on the report of a brother of Kazeez Fatima and started investigation.

In another incident, six unidentified robbers looted cash and valuables worth Rs 1.5 million from a pottery factory, owned by one Ijaz Rajput in city’s Small Industrial Estate area in the precincts of Lorry Adda police station.

As per the police, the robbers took away Rs1.35 million cash from the factory, besides cell phones and small cash from the workers.

Police have registered a case against the unidentified criminals and started investigation.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2023