MANSEHRA: Three people, including a police sub-inspector, were killed when a jeep plunged into the Indus River in Zaidkhar area of Upper Kohistan on Saturday.

Police said the vehicle was on way to Dasu from a nearby village. The driver lost control over the steering while negotiating a turn.

They identified the victims as Mohammad Ayaz, the driver, Abdul Khaliq and Sub-Inspector Mohammad Babar The bodies were yet to be fished out.

In another incident, two minor brothers aged between five and 10 years were killed and seven other members of their nomad family were injured when their tents were flattened during clearing of landslides on the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road in Jalkhad area of Kaghan valley.

The locals shifted the injured to a nearby hospital where doctors pronounced two brothers dead.

The injured were referred to Ayub Medical Complex Hospital in Abbottabad.

NHA deputy director Saiful Muluk told reporters that an inquiry had been started and the victims’ family would be dispensed with justice.

HOTELS SEALED: The Kaghan Development Authority has sealed three hotels and two restaurants in Naran after the workers tested positive for coronavirus.

“So far many employees have tested positive for the infection, leading to sealing of the hotels,” KDA deputy director Mazhar Hussain told reporters on Saturday.

He said the authority had started taking tests of the employees of hotels and restaurants in tourist resorts of Shogran and Naran as per the directives of the government.

The deputy director said owners of many hotels and restaurants had also been fined for not observing the SOPs.

Meanwhile, Saith Matiullah, the hotels association’s president in Kaghan valley, told reporters that hoteliers were strictly following the SOPs.

JI : Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq has condemned the killing of a Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf activist in Mansehra last month, and announced raising the issue in the Senate.

A press release issued on Saturday quoted its emir as saying that the accused party was hurling threats at the party’s Mansehra naib emir Malik Aurangzeb as he was a witness to the killing of PTI worker, Zeeshan. He warned that such tactics won’t be tolerated.

Mr Haq asked the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief to take notice of it.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2020