MANSEHRA: The police on Friday rescued a tourist family stranded in the Kaghan Valley here.

“A five-member family from Peshawar got stuck in their vehicle in the Gattidas area due to heavy snowfall earlier this week, but our personnel successfully rescued them and their vehicle,” district police officer Shafiullah Khan Gandapur told reporters here.

The Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road, which connects Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with Gilgit-Baltistan, was blocked following snowfall, the heaviest of the season in Kaghan Valley, on Tuesday.

The DPO said the family, which was returning from Babusar Top to Peshawar, was safely shifted to Naran by police personnel manning the Gattidas post.

DPO says MNJ Road closed to traffic beyond Barawai

“Now, the tourist family is on the way to their hometown,” he said.

Mr Gandapur said the MNJ Road was currently closed to traffic beyond Barawai in the upper parts of the valley and was likely to remain closed until the summer season sets in next year.

He said a police station had been set up in Naran along with nine posts in the upper parts of Kaghan Valley for the safety of tourists, but these posts were wound up in the winter.

“With the start of snowfall in the valley and the closure of the MNJ Road, we have closed the Basal, Gattidas, and Jalkhad posts. Police personnel and other policemen from those posts moved to Naran,” he said.

Mr Gandapur said that police personnel and staff would remain present at Soach, Battakundi, and Barawai posts to ensure the safety of local residents, who would gradually migrate to their seasonal residences in the lower parts of Mansehra and the rest of the Hazara division.

BODY FOUND: A young woman from Kohistan region was found in the Pano Khatta area on Friday.

The woman was allegedly kidnapped by two brothers for marriage around nine months ago.

The residents found the body in a stream and informed police officials, who shifted it to King Abdullah Teaching Hospital for postmortem.

After the completion of medico-legal formalities, the doctors handed over the body to the family.

In the FIR, Aurangzeb, a Kohistan resident, who is now settled in the Gandia area here, alleged that his daughter was kidnapped by Fazlur Rehman and his brother Alamzeb earlier this year for marriage and she had been assaulted since then.

He added that the accused had murdered his daughter and dumped her body in the stream. The complainant did not specify the motive for the murder.

The police registered a case under sections 302 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code and started raids to arrest the suspects.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2024