MANSEHRA: Hundreds of people travelling between Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including tourists, were stranded in Kaghan valley on Tuesday after a landslide blocked the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road near Babusar Top.

The closure of the Naran-Chelas Section of the MNJ Road was caused by heavy boulders, which fell from mountains near the GB-KP border.

The National Highway Authority shifted machinery there to clear boulders.

Jabran Ali, a tourist from Rawalpindi, told reporters in Naran, the commercial centre of Kaghan valley, that he along with family had to go to Hunza in Gilgit-Baltistan but the landslide near Babusar Top had hampered their journey.

He said many tourists were stranded in the area.

Another visitor, Mohammad Azmat, said many families, who had left Naran, had returned due to the road closure.

He said the NHA workers had assured him and others of the early reopening of the road.

PROTESTS THREATENED: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Oghi chapter, activists have warned that they will take to the streets if the education department doesn’t begin science classes in the tehsil’s only public sector degree college.

“Our (PTI’s last) government had approved science classes at the Oghi degree college but the college administration announced admissions for arts classes only. This is unacceptable to us,” PTI tehsil president Habib Bassikhel told reporters here on Tuesday.

Mr Bassikhel said the government had approved BS programmes in zoology, botany, computer sciences and chemistry last year but the college administration announced admission in other subjects only.

Lawyer Irfan Swati, who was also present on the occasion, said a large number of students were in distress over the denial of admission in BS classes.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2018