One dead, three injured as student opens fire in Russian college

One person was killed and three injured on Thursday when a student opened fire at a college in Blagoveshchensk, a city in Russia’s Far Eastern Amur Region, the Amur Region department of the Russian interior ministry said, TASS reports.

The shooter committed suicide by turning the gun on himself.

"Bodies of two young men, including the shooter, were found at the site of the incident. Also, according to early reports, three were injured," the department said in a statement. "Preliminary information suggests that the gunman committed suicide using his weapon. It is registered as belonging to this citizen."

The statement says that a young man ran up to a road police squad and informed them about the shooting in a college building nearby. Police spotted an armed man in the second-storey window, who fired a shot at them. The officers returned fire, and the gunman was subsequently blocked in a lecture hall.

"The officers were not injured," the statement said. "The young people who were wounded are receiving medical assistance."

Two teenagers injured in a college shooting in the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk have undergone surgeries at the Amur Regional Children's Clinical Hospital, the regional government said in a statement.

"Two 17-year-old teenagers with gunshot wounds were admitted [to the hospital] at 11:00 (02:00 GMT). One of them had suffered wounds to his neck, the back of his head and his right shoulder. The other teen has a buttock wound. Both have undergone surgeries, one of them is in critical condition and remains in the intensive care unit, the other one is in serious condition," Chief of the hospital’s Polytrauma Center Vladimir Dudkin said, according to the statement.

The third injured person was admitted to Blagoveshchensk’s First City Hospital. The hospital’s Chief Medical Officer Alexander Suchkov said that he had also undergone surgery. "He is in the intensive care unit in critical condition. He has a buttock wound," he said.

Police sees the shooter’s conflict with fellow students as a possible reason for the incident.