PANIC paralysed Montreal yesterday when a gunman in a trenchcoat went on the rampage at a college in the heart of the Canadian city, killing one student and injuring 20 others before he was shot.

Hundreds of students fled into the surrounding streets when the young man stormed into Dawson College and opened fire at the entrance, then ran upstairs and sprayed the cafeteria with bullets. At least eight of the injured were in critical condition last night.

Initial reports suggested that the gunman had shot himself, but the head of Montreal’s police said later that he had been shot by one of his officers.

“They saw a suspect shooting inside the walls of Dawson,” Yvan Delorme, the Police Director, told a news conference. “So the first policeman took charge of the situation, and shot in the direction of the suspect, and the suspect died.”

Later police said that one of the injured, a 20-year old woman, had died in hospital.

The motive for the shootings was not known. “There is no racist connotation or no terrorist link as far as we know,” Mr DeLorme added.

The shooting revived memories of the Montreal massacre of December 6, 1989, when Marc Lepine shot 27 female engineering students at the city’s École Polytechnique, killing 14. Lepine concluded his spree by shooting himself.

The outcry that followed led to tighter gun laws, including a controversial national firearms register.

But yesterday’s attack has shaken Canada’s image as a haven from the violence so prevalent in the United States.

Initial reports cited as many as three gunmen but Ean Lafreniere, a police spokesman, said that there was just one suspect. Witnesses at Dawson College said that the assailant opened fire on a group of smokers congregating outside the school’s main entrance.

“I was in my calculus class,” said Joseph Estevez, a student. “It was coming to the end of class and we were getting ready to leave. We heard four bangs.

“We didn’t know they were gunshots, because there has been construction. But someone looked out of the window and said, ‘Oh my God, someone’s been shot’.”

“When we looked outside the window, there was somebody on the ground. He was convulsing. There was blood coming out of his head. There was also the man and he was sweeping it around and then he went running into the school main entrance. And the other two people were shot. They were down.

“We saw him run into the school. We barricaded the door. We turned off the lights. We made everyone get under the desks.”

Witnesses in the cafeteria described the assailant as a white man in a black trenchcoat with knee-high black boots. Devansh Smri Vastava, a student, said that he saw a man in military fatigues and heard about 20 shots.

“We all ran upstairs,” he said. “There were cops firing. It was so crazy. I was terrified. The guy was shooting at people randomly. He didn’t care, he was shooting at everybody. I just got out.”

Derick Osei, 19, said that he was walking down the stairs when he saw a man with a gun. “He . . . just started shooting up the place,” he said.

“I ran up to the third floor and I looked down and he was still shooting. He was hiding behind the vending machines and he came out with a gun and started pointing and pointed at me. So I ran up the stairs. I saw a girl get shot in the leg.”

Another student, Michel Boyer, said: “I saw the gunman, who was dressed in black, and at that time he was shooting at people. I immediately hit the floor. It was probably one of the most frightening moments of my life.

“He was shooting randomly. I didn’t know what he was shooting at, but everyone was screaming ‘get out of the building’. Everybody was so worried for their own safety, for their own lives.

“We ran out of the building as a SWAT team was coming in. They were screaming ‘Where is he? Where is he?’.”

The SWAT team cleared classrooms at the Englishlanguage college, which offers pre-university courses for about 10,000 students.

A shopping centre across the street was also evacuated after people reported shots there. Police also closed an underground station that has direct access to the college.

TIGHTER RULES THAN IN THE US

Under Canada’s 1995 Firearms Act, extensive background searches must be carried out by the authorities on anybody who wants to buy a gun

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