HARIPUR: Two people were killed and two suffered critical injuries as part of the Chappar Bridge collapsed here on Thursday afternoon.

The bridge collapse disconnected hundreds of rural areas from the main Haripur city.

Witnesses and police identified the deceased as brothers Hassan Razi and Fakhar Razi of Kakha village saying the two bound for Haripur city were crossing the bridge on a motorcycle when the incident occurred.

Incident also injures two riding a car

A car also fell into the river injuring two riding in it.

Built on the Daur River during early 80s by the Frontier Works Organisation, the bridge connects hundreds of villages in Beer, Sera-e Nehmat Khan, Pind Hasham Khan, Ladarmang, Kalinjar, Gandaf union councils. Vans and buses also use the bridge to move among Abbottabad and Mansehra villages.

Mohammad Naseer, a resident of Mankraey village, said the bridge had been in shambles for several years but the C&W department ignored the people’s repeated requests to repair or reconstruct it and thus, leading to the incident.

He said the incident would be claimed lots of lives, had it collapsed during school hours.

PTI-PPP ALLIANCE OPPOSED: Member of the PTI Central Executive Council Yousuf Ayub Khan has warned if his party makes an alliance with the PPP to form next governments, the coalition will not last a fortnight as both the parties are ideologically polls apart.

He was speaking to media persons during a visit to the offices of the Haripur Union of Journalists here on Thursday.

Mr Yousuf said the rumour had it that the future political set-up in the country would have the PTI and PPP as coalition partners but that rumour was neither based on reality nor was it feasible.

“Both the parties (PTI and PPP) are ideologically polls apart and cannot coexist as allies in the government even for a fortnight,” he said, adding that the PTI was the only party, which had a strong commitment to ending the ‘culture of corruption’, restoring the dignity of the country internationally and bringing prosperity to the entire nation.

The PTI leader said his brothers, including Akbar Ayub and Arshad Ayub, would be the PTI’s candidates from PK-40 and PK-41, respectively, while his cousin, Omar Ayub Khan, would contest the NA-13 elections on the party’s ticket.

He however hastened to add that the party’s parliamentary board would take the final decision on it.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2018