HAFIZABAD, April 5: Nine students of a madressah were killed and 17 injured after a speeding tractor-trolley rammed into the wall of a seminary after hitting a donkey cart. DSP Saddar Shoukat Joya said that the tractor-trolley first hit a donkey cart and then ploughed into the wall of one of the rooms of the madressah, causing it to collapse on the students. Nine students were killed and 17 others injured.

The dead and injured children at the madressah were aged from 5 to 13 years. Their teacher escaped injury, he said.

Officials of the local administration, the Education department and villagers rushed to site and carried out relief and rescue operation.

Eight bodies were recovered from the debris and one of the injured later died in hospital.

Seven injured students were brought to the DHQ Hospital and admitted there but one of them, a minor girl with a serious head injury, had been shifted to a Lahore hospital, police said.

The driver of the tractor, which was pulling a trailer, fled after the crash and police were looking for him. —APP