Students protest in Pakistan after school bus attack

A driver was shot dead and a student critically wounded in an attack on a school bus in Pakistan, police said, leading up to 2,000 girls and boys to walk out of classes in protest.

The Swat Valley, where the attack took place, was once overrun by the Pakistani Taliban, who notoriously shot Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai on a school bus in the same city ten years ago.

The area has seen a resurgence of militancy since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan last year with a spike in attacks -- mainly targeting security forces -- in recent weeks.

Locals in Mingora, the city where the attack took place, fear it was carried out by the Pakistani Taliban but the militants have denied responsibility for the shooting.

Students from private schools across Swat Valley staged a protest calling for peace.

"People are angry and they are protesting. Students from all the private schools came out to protest," Ahmad Shah, principal of a private school, said, adding that schools would remain closed.

That attack comes a day after the 10th anniversary of the shooting of Yousafzai by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) when she was a schoolgirl.

The Pakistan government and TTP have been in a series of on-off ceasefires over the past year, with both sides accusing each other of violations.

In a separate incident in a town neighbouring Mingora, two girls and a boy were wounded in cross-firing, which police said was the result of a "personal vendetta".