Representative image. Gunmen opened fire on a school van in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province on Thursday, August 22
| Photo Credit: AFP

Gunmen opened fire on a school van in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province Thursday (August 22, 2024) killing two children and wounding six other people, police and officials said.

Authorities said the driver, who was among the wounded, seemed to be the target of the attack. “Our initial investigations indicate that the driver had an enmity with someone,” Mohammad Shakil, a local police official, said. He provided no further details.

Police were still investigating to determine who was behind the firing, and no one has claimed responsibility.

The dead and wounded were transported to a nearby hospital, said Ghias Gull, a district police chief in Attock, where the shooting occurred.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsoin Naqvi denounced the attack and ordered the best possible medical treatment be provided to the wounded.

Attock is a district in Punjab province but is not far away from Pakistan’s restive northwest.

Militant attacks have surged in Pakistan in recent years, mostly in the northwest bordering Afghanistan. In 2014, Pakistani militants in the worst assault on an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed 147 people, including 132 children.