JAND: In a heartbreaking incident near Mathial Chowk on the Attock-Kohat Road, a woman sacrificed her life along with her nine-year-old son after heroically rescuing her three other children from a burning passenger van in which they were travelling on Saturday morning.

The Rawalpindi-bound van coming from Karak collided with a car near Jand, overturned and caught fire. The cause of the fire was attributed to a leakage of CNG from its cylinder. As the van caught fire, the passengers tried to save their lives, but the women did not care for her own safety and pulled her children trapped in the wreckage of the burning vehicle and threw them out.

“I called the woman to get out and save her life but she ignored it and kept trying and succeeded to save the lives of her three children, including two daughters,” Umaira Bibi, an injured passenger, told Dawn while being treated at the tehsil headquarters hospital Jand.

“The woman got engulfed in flames while trying to save her nine-year-old son and died along with him,” said Shumaila Wajid, another injured passenger, at the trauma centre.

The family was going to spend the weekend with relatives in Islamabad, said Kabeer Khan, another injured.

“We removed the charred bodies of the mother and her son which were stuck with each other. It seemed that the mother had made a shield of her body to save her son from burning,” said Amir Nawaz, an official of Rescue 1122.

Police identified the woman as Nosheen Begum, wife of Mohammad Yasin, a native of tehsil Banda Daud Shah in the district of Attock. Her deceased son was identified as Amalbaz. The children who survived with burn injuries were Muskan, Maryum and Abdullah.

The other passengers, including six women, received burn injuries in the incident.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2025