The driver of a bus carrying two dozen schoolchildren in St. Petersburg was stabbed and beaten with a bat after confronting another driver who had cut him off.

On Monday evening, a black off-roader swerved in front of the passenger bus carrying children from a school trip to a museum, forcing it to a stop, local web paper fontanka.ru reports. The bus driver then exited his vehicle and got into an argument with the other car's driver, who was accompanied by a woman. Matters then suddenly turned violent.

Read more

"I told our driver, don't you go out, but he said people like that need to be educated, and went out," fontanka.ru quoted a teacher who accompanied the children as saying. "They were talking at first, but then the woman started hitting our driver. They started grappling, a scuffle broke out. I noticed the [other driver] was holding a knife."

As the motorist started stabbing the bus driver in the stomach, the teacher said she rushed out to help but the woman pushed her back, and pulling a bat out of their car's trunk, started hitting the injured driver.

The other teachers in the bus then called the police and the enraged driver and his female companion fled the scene. The injured bus driver was taken to hospital in a serious condition.

Police escorted the bus with all the children, three teachers and a mother on board to the nearest station for interviews. The children were then taken to school and back to their home town of Kirovsk, near St. Petersburg. The learners, who are in the fourth grade (age 9 or 10 for most Russian schools), were in St. Petersburg on a class trip to a museum.

St. Petersburg police have launched a manhunt for the offender, who was identified as local businessman Alizade Mustafaev. He has a history of migration-related offences dating back to the early 2000s, but has been a Russian citizen since 2009 and a registered businessman since 2016. Police are now looking at all the usual hangouts frequented by Mustafaev.