The incident took place around 10.20 a.m., when the lunch recess was on at the Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya in gali no. 7, Gautampuri. The school's first session, which lasts from 7.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., is only for girls and the boys attend classes between 1 p.m. and 5.30 p.m.

During the lunch break, the teachers were eating in one room while the students were playing in the corridors and classrooms. It was at this time that the youth -- later identified as Wazhad -- entered classroom no. 301 on the third floor and called Mehnaaz outside. The two got into an argument, after which Wazhad took out a country-made revolver and shot her in the neck. There was total chaos on the third floor as a bleeding Mehnaaz collapsed on the floor.

Wazhad fled, but not before firing another shot in the air and creating more confusion. A clerk, Deepak, chased him and managed to stop him at the gate. Deepak later told the police that he thought there was something wrong when he heard the screams and then saw a young boy rushing down the stairs, so he ran after him.

The teachers also rushed downstairs and locked Wazhad in one of the classrooms while they called the police. Mehnaaz's brother Mohammed Sohail reached the school at the same time. ``Her exams had recently got over. She had left her social studies paper, which had to be submitted for re-checking, at home. I brought this to the school. I was walking up the stairs when I heard a gunshot. I didn't see the boy, but I noticed some teachers bringing Mehnaaz down. We immediately took her to hospital.''

Mehnaaz's friends say that Wazhad -- whom the police describe as a `bad character' of the area -- had been troubling her for some time. ``She comes from a very conservative Muslim family. If she told her parents about Wazhad they would have stopped her from attending classes. Around two days ago, he stopped her while she was going home and tried to talk to her. She slapped him. Maybe that's why he shot her today.''

Mehnaaz's mother Farida Begum, however, denies this. ``I am very close to my daughter. She would have told me if she knew this boy or if he was troubling her. He just asked her for some other girl's address and then shot her.'' And then the distraught woman adds: ``If our daughter was having an affair, we wouldn't have allowed her to go to school.''

While Mehnaaz's friends say that the interest was one-sided, some teachers insist that the two were involved. ``The two lived close to each other in Jafrabad and they are distantly related. There was something going on between them. Why should he shoot her otherwise?'' asked one teacher.

Vice Principal Sohan Lal says that Wazhad and his friends have caused trouble in the school before as well.