At least three people were injured during a bus hijacking in the northeast region of Piedmont on Tuesday, Interior Ministry sources said.
The bus was en route from Alessandria to Acqui Terme when it was hijacked by three foreigners, one said to be armed with a pistol.
Most of the 20 or so passengers on the bus were students, while two off-duty policemen was also aboard.
One of the two, a cadet at the Alessandria police academy, apparently tried to intervene at the start of the hijacking and had his nose broken when he was hit in the face.
The highjacking began at about 3pm when one of the foreigners approached the driver, brandished a pistol and ordered him to turn the bus back.
According to police, the driver refused and the hijacker fired a warning shot into the air. It was at this point that the cadet intervened.
The hijackers first let the cadet off the bus and then doused the vehicle's floor with gasoline they had brought aboard with them in a plastic can.
Then they ordered the driver to take the Voltri-Sempione motorway and at a service stop allowed most of the women aboard to disembark. Other passengers were allowed off at the Vercelli East exit before the bus headed towards Novara, near the border with the region of Lombardy.
The bus - with the hijackers, driver and four hostages aboard - was later intercepted by police on a bridge near the border and a shootout ensued.
One of the hijackers was injured and captured in the firefight while the other two managed to escape into the forest, after setting the bus on fire as a diversion.
The other policeman on the bus, who had been kept as a hostage, is reported to have been injuredin the shootout.
Police then set up a dragnet in the area which allowed them to capture a second hickjacker. Both were later identified as Albanian nationals, aged 27 and 19, and police believe the third is also Albanian.
Police said they do not know why the bus was hijacked, but noted that the action had apparently been planned because the three were armed and had brought aboard the bus the gasoline they later use to burn it.
Several passengers on the bus said the hijackers had given no explanation nor did they shout any slogans.
