TAXILA: Another school van came under attack in Attock district on Friday in which the driver was stabbed and injured about 24 hours after another incident in which two minor students were killed and five others were injured on Thursday.

A police spokesman attributed the attack on the school van to an old enmity between the driver and attackers.

The vehicle’s windscreen was damaged in the incident.

The van was carrying male and female students from Gullyal in Jand tehsil to their schools when two men attacked the driver with knives and daggers. As a result, he received injuries, but the students remained safe.

The driver was shifted to the tehsil headquarters hospital Jand where his condition was stated to be out of danger.

When contacted, police spokesman Sub-Inspector Junaid said the van driver was the target of the attackers. He said there was some old enmity between the driver and the attackers.

Responding to a question, he said a case was registered against the attackers at the Jand police station.

Police have launched a haunt to arrest the suspects, he added.

Meanwhile, police booked five persons, including four cousins, for their alleged involvement in opening fire on a van, killing two minor students and injuring five others in Dheri Kot area located in the limits of Attock Saddar police on Thursday.

The injured van driver in a statement recorded with the police stated that a man identified as Ali Khan, an official of the forest department, was shot dead on June 28 this year.

The driver said his brothers-in-law Mohammad Riasat, Mohammad Asif and Alauddin were nominated in the murder case.

However, they have gone underground after the murder.

To take revenge of the murder of their uncle, Mohammad Naeem along with his brother Mohammad Raheem, Azam Khan, Nasir Khan and a friend Mohammad Tariq intercepted his vehicle on Thursday when he was going to drop the students at a charity school in a nearby village.

They showered bullets on the vehicle as a result of which two minor female children sitting on the front seat died on the spot while five other students along with the driver were injured.

The incharge of the heinous crime investigation unit Inspector Sajjad Ahmed registered the case against the five suspects under section 302, 324, 109, 148, 149 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and section 7 of ATA and launched a haunt to trace them.

According to a police spokesman, teams equipped with digital surveillance gadgets were formed to apprehend the suspects.

Meanwhile, most of the students who received bullet injuries were discharged from the District Headquarters Hospital after their condition improved, said Dr Jawaad Ellahi, the medical superintendent of the hospital.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2024