MANSEHRA: Seventeen persons were killed in road accidents in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, police said on Wednesday.

Four people, including a woman, were killed and two others sustained critical injuries when a jeep plunged into a deep ravine in Pattan area of Lower Kohistan on Wednesday.

“We retrieved all the four dead and injured from ravine and shifted them to Ayub Medical Complex in Abbottabad,” DPO Sulman Khan told journalists.

The jeep, which was on its way to Swat from Pattan, met the accident when its driver couldn’t hold control over steering while negotiating a sharp curve. As a result, the jeep skidded off Karakoram Highway and plunged into a deep ravine.

Mr Khan said that they retrieved the bodies and injured from the ditch with the help of locals and shifted them to a hospital in Pattan. He said that the deceased belonged to the same family and were in Pattan to celebrate Eid with their relatives.

The deceased were identified as driver Hakeem Khan, Hukmaran Khan, Ghulam Qadir and Nasira Bibi.

Meanwhile, four tourists from Bajaur tribal district were killed when a car plunged into a deep ravine in Kawai area of Kaghan valley on Wednesday.

The incident happened when the driver of the car lost control over steering and the four tourists sustained critical injuries. They were rushed to civil hospital in Balakot from where they were referred to King Abdullah Teaching Hospital in Mansehra where doctors pronounced all of them dead.

The dead were identified as Mohammad Akram, Hayat Khan, Mohammad Shakar and Habibullah. They were on a recreational tour to Kaghan valley.

In Buner, four women and two children of a family were killed and four others suffered injuries when a car they were travelling in skidded off the road and fell into a deep ravine on Karakar Pass.

The victims were identified as Yasmeen, Khalida, Husan Zeba, Sameena, Fahad and Sameer. The injured included a woman, Raghbil, Saqlain, Zubair and minor Zaid. The ill-fated family belonged to Tangora Chaghorzai.

Later, the bodies were dispatched to Tangora while the injured were admitted to a local hospital.

The family was going back from Swat after a picnic when the driver lost control over the car at a sharp turn on Karakar Pass.

In Haripur, three teenagers were killed when their motorbikes collided with each other near Kahnpur.

Police said that the motorcycle of Faisal Mehmood Abbasi and Amir Hamza, residents of Pind Gakhra village, collided head on with another motorbike driven by Yasir Beg near Khanpur on the first day of Eidul Azha.

All the three motorcyclists were injured critically in the accident. They were shifted to tehsil headquarters hospital in Khanpur from where they were referred them to Trauma Centre where Faisal Abbasi and Yasir Beg were pronounced dead while Amir Hamza succumbed to his injuries in Ayub Medical Complex Abbottabad.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2019