MANSEHRA: The Upper Kohistan district administration with the support of the Frontier Works Organisation on Saturday cleared the Karakoram Highway of landslides, thus restoring the vehicular traffic between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan.

“The KKH, which was blocked following heavy landslides at three places triggered by a cloudburst, has been cleared for traffic and a damage survey is in progress in the affected parts,” deputy commissioner Arif Yusufzai told reporters.

The FWO removed the boulders from KKH at Shitial, Harban and an adjoining locality, following which, the passengers stranded on both sides of the artery at various places left to their destinations.

Meanwhile, search for the bodies of four members of a family, who were swept away in Lachi Nullah in Sazeen village continued on Saturday, but to no avail.

According to the district administration, seven members of the family drowned in the nullah and bodies of three of them, including a woman and her two daughters, had been fished out.

BAN ON FISHING: Commissioner Hazara division Riaz Mehsud has imposed ban on fishing of the endangered trout fish, which is currently found only in Kunhar River and the three lakes in the Kaghan valley.

“The trout fish, which survives only in cold water, is rapidly vanishing because of hunting through explosives and electric current in the valley, prompting the Hazara commissioner to ban the illegal activity for next two years,” deputy director Kaghan Development Authority Mazhar Hussain Shah told reporters on Saturday.

He said the decision was taken at a KDA board of authorities’ meeting attended among others by the commissioner, newly-elected KDA chairman Aimal Zaman, DIG Hazara Qazi Jamilur Rehman, deputy commissioner, Mansehra, Aurangzeb Haider and DPO Sadiq Baloch. He said the meeting finalised a strategy to promote tourism and preserve the flora and fauna in the Kaghan valley.

He said in order to ensure implementation of the ban, officials of the fisheries department would be deployed at each police post in the valley.

AFGHANS’ ENTRY RESTRICTED: The police have restricted entry of Afghan refugees into the city and its suburbs under a security plan chalked out for Ashura processions on Saturday.

The Afghan refugees have been confined to their camps across the district for Muharram 9 and 10.

Also, the police sealed entry points leading to the central imambargah in Mufti Abad and Payrain Khair Abad areas from where the Ashura processions would be taken out.

Meanwhile, a man was killed over a land dispute in Garhi Habibullah on Saturday.

Abdul Ghafoor and his wife axed to death Abdul Shakoor and managed to flee in Dohga area. The police lodged FIR.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2020