MUZAFFARABAD, July 25: Seven people, including two brothers were killed and as many wounded after their vehicle veered off the road and plunged into a river near here in the wee hours of Monday, police said. The vehicle, a pick up of Municipal Corporation Muzaffarabad, fell down the road near Rara, some 10km south of here on Muzaffarabad-Kohala road, reportedly due to some technical problem into the left bank of swollen Jhelum River, killing seven people and injuring six others.

Three of the dead identified as Pervez Masih, Abid Masih and Salim Masih were swept away by the violent current whereas the bodies of other four, identified as Javed Masih, Shamsad Masih, Riaz Masih and Aziz Masih, were recovered from the vehicle.

Except for Salim Masih, the rest were employed by the civic body as sanitary workers. The victims were returning from Sialkot where they had gone on Friday evening to bury an 8-month-old girl from their community allegedly after the Muslims had denied them burial in any of the local graveyards.

According to official sources, the AJK government had some time back reserved a piece of land for graveyard of the Christians. However, the community could not get its possession as some influential person owned that land.

Monday’s incident once again highlighted the Christian community’s problem regarding the burial of their dead, following which the district administration announced that a 3-kanal plot of land had been allocated for their graveyard in Makri locality. However, the bodies had not been buried till the filing of this report as an ownership dispute had erupted on that land as well.