MANSEHRA: The Frontier Works Organisation on Saturday began repairing a flood-hit bridge between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan on the Karakoram Highway.

District police officer in Lower Kohistan Muzammil Shah told reporters that the Khayal Bridge on the Indus River here was closed to heavy traffic before the start of its repair and it would remain closed until work was completed.

He said cracks appeared in one of the bridge’s beams during the recent flash floods.

“Goods transports vehicles, trucks and lorries use the bridge to reach KP and GB, so vehicles weighing over 10 tonnes aren’t allowed to use it until it is repaired,” he said.

POLLS: Former MNA retired Captain Mohammad Safdar on Saturday said he would contest next elections for both national and provincial assembly constituencies from his native Mansehra district. He also announced he would seek the court’s intervention for by-election in PK-33 for ‘being denied participation in the last elections through the Panama Papers conspiracy’.

Mr Safdar, who is the son-in-law of former premier and PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif, said he and his wife Maryam Nawaz were denied participation in the 2018 general elections through that conspiracy.

He hailed the overturning of sentence against him and his wife in the Avenfield properties corruption case.

The former MNA alleged that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leader Azam Khan Swati and his younger brother, Laiq Mohammad Khan, were involved in corruption but filed an application with the National Accountability Bureau and commissioner of Hazara division against him.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2022