RAWALPINDI, April 21: Three women and a minor were critically injured on Wednesday when some unidentified youths pelted the bus of a franchise company with stones on Murree Road near Waris Khan. According to the eye-witnesses, more than a dozen people suddenly came out of a street and started pelting stones at the bus full of passengers leaving four seriously injured and the bus damaged.

The injured were shifted to the hospital. Some other passengers, who got minor injuries, left the scene. The attackers disappeared in the street before the police came. In another similar incident, about 35 people tried to set fire to another bus of Varan Tours on Islamabad Highway. The attackers had petrol cans in their hands when they intercepted the bus full of passengers.

They sprinkled petrol on the tyres of the bus and set light to them. Some burning cans were also thrown inside the bus which were immediately picked up by the bus staff and thrown outside. The driver, raced the vehicle away that extinguished the fire, eye-witnesses said.

Similarly, a gang of about 30 people, allegedly belonging to the public transporters, waylaid yet another bus of the franchise company, sprinkled petrol on its tyres and set them on fire. The driver raced the vehicle which extinguished the fire.

The Varan Tours chief executive, Uzma Gul, when contacted, alleged that two of her company's buses were attacked by the public transport owners on Monday. She said separate FIRs had been registered with the police against the union leaders of the public transport owners.

Ms Gul said she had requested the district police officer (DPO), Rawalpindi, Syed Moravat Shah, to provide protection to the passengers travelling in the company buses. "I can only register an FIR and make a request to the local administration to provide security to the passengers and arrest the culprits," she said.