RAWALPINDI, April 9: At least eight persons were killed and 12 others injured when a passenger wagon rammed into a trailer near the Tarnol railway crossing in the small hours of Saturday, police sources told Dawn.

The wagon was going to Bannu from Rawalpindi when it went out of the driver’s control due to over-speeding while negotiating a turn and smashed into the trailer at Fateh Jhang road near the railway crossing.

As a result five passengers of the wagon died on the spot and three others, including a man, his son and a journalist of a local English daily, succumbed to their injuries later in hospitals.

People from the surrounding areas rushed to the scene of the accident and pulled the dead and injured trapped in the wreckage of the vehicles and took them to different hospitals in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

The traffic on the road remained suspended for over an hour due to the accident.

The dead were identified as Noorullah of Bannu, Najamullah of Waziristan, his six-year-old son Ilyani, Naveed Iqbal of Bannu, Najeebullah of Bannu, Abdul Hadi (driver) of Bannu; Inayatullah of Islamabad and Noor Mohammad (journalist) of Karak.

While the injured include Saeed Ayaz, Jabbar, Naseerullah, Inamullah, Raheem Daraz, Azam Khan, Ainuddin, Najeebullah, Riaz, Sheeran Badshah, Omer Iyaz and Gul Bostan. They were shifted to Pims and District Headquarters Hospital, Rawalpindi, where three of them were stated to be in crtitical condition.

The Tarnol police have taken Gul Mushtaq, the driver of the trailer, into custody and impounded his vehicle.