HARIPUR: Two persons, including a child, were killed and two minors injured when the wall of an under-construction house collapsed in Sera-i-Saleh as heavy rain coupled with hailstorm lashed parts of the Haripur district on Saturday evening.

The victims were identified as a retired sub-inspector of Haripur police, Mashkooruz Zaman, and Sajjad Ahmed, 9. They were taken to the Haripur Trauma Centre in critical condition, where doctors pronounced them dead.

The other injured children were identified as Mustafa, 6, and Mohammad Ibrahim, 11.

Officials said the rain also flooded the hill torrents and irrigation channels and overflowing drains flooded the roads and streets in the city.

The hailstones, according to the people, were of unusual size and damaged standing crops of orange, plums, guava, apricots, lychee, while several mud houses in hilly areas of Khanpur, Lower Tanawal and Ghazi were partially damaged. Electricity supply was also disrupted.

Separately, a man shot dead his paternal uncle over a property dispute on Sunday.

The police quoted Mussarat Bibi, wife of Adil Mehmood as saying that she was home with her husband in Pind Jamal Khan village, when Abrar Ahmed, her husband’s nephew, barged into their residence and opened fire at her husband, injuring him critically.

The injured was removed to Rural Health Centre, Kotnajibullah, where he died. The accused managed to escape.

In another development, the petition writers have demanded of the district and sessions judge to allocate space for them in the new judicial complex.

The demand was made during the oath-taking ceremony of the petition writers association, Haripur, on Sunday.

SP investigations Mujeebur Rehman administered the oath to the newly-elected body.

Speaking on the occasion, the office-bearers said about four months ago the district courts were relocated to the new building of the judicial complex near the government postgraduate college for boys, but there was no space yet allocated for the petition writers.

They said the general public was facing hardships running between the old court buildings, where the petition writers were still occupying the space, and the judicial complex.

They demanded that the offices that were originally constructed for petition writers should be given to them instead of lawyers.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2021