Chauhan was stabbed several times allegedly by one Saroj Shyamanand and three others. Though the incident occurred in broad daylight, shopkeepers of the locality told Express Newsline on Thursday that they had been too far away to get a look at the assailants' faces.

Meanwhile, D J Saxena, principal of the Adarsh Hindi Higher Secondary School where Saroj is a class XII student and Roshanlal Agrawal, president of the Uttar Bharatiya Sangh, which runs the school, denied that Saroj had been involved in any fight in the school premises.

A fight between Chauhan's friend Veeru Harpal Singh and Saroj was reported in the media as the immediate cause of the stabbing.

Saxena said, ``There was no incident of any sort in the school on September 15. If something happened outside, I have no knowledge of it. And what the students do outside is none of our business. We aren't policemen''.

But he admitted that Saroj had been absent on Wednesday. ``We had Gujarati (optional) examinations on Wednesday. Since Saroj has English (optional), he was not supposed to come to school'', he said. Saxena also denied that Chauhan was a former student of the school.

Incidentally, while there were eye-witnesses to the murder attempt, no one made any effort to move him to hospital until Deputy Commissioner of Police (Administration) Meera Ramnivas passed by the spot. She called the Gorwa police and arranged to have the victim sent to SSG Hospital.

``He would have collapsed if he hadn't got medical attention immediately'', she told Express Newsline.