MANSEHRA: Around 110 passengers entered Mansehra city on foot after two coaches dropped them off in Tannan area bordering Abbottabad district on Tuesday.

They claimed that they rode the coaches in Lahore and entered the city via the Karakoram Highway without being screened for coronavirus.

“We all are on the way to our respective destinations after being dropped off by two coaches in Tannan area of Abbottabad,” a passenger told reporters.

PTI leader Dr Zaheer Khan claimed that he had caught the passengers coming out of coaches on camera

“It’s really disturbing to note that the two coaches carrying 110 passengers first entered Haripur and then Abbottabad,” he told reporters.

The PTI leader said if any of those passengers carried coronavirus, the disease would spread in the region.

Two coaches drop them off on KKH

He asked the administration to enforce ban on transport and screening of all those entering Mansehra.

The residents feared that the flouting of transport ban would hamper the government’s efforts to stem the spread of coronavirus.

SCREENING: The local government and rural development department will screen expatriates and pilgrims for coronavirus to Mansehra district.

“The government has tasked us with collecting the data of expatriates and pilgrims, who returned from Iran, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world to all 194 village and neighbourhood councils of our district,” assistant director (local government) Abdul Rasheed told reporters here on Tuesday.

He said the village and neighbourhood council secretaries would submit the data to the administration without delay.

Officials claimed 387 expatriates and pilgrims had entered the district and 37 of them had been screened for the virus.

LEOPARD KILLS GOATS: Acommonleopard killed many goats in Battal area.

Former village council nazim Sardar Ghulam Mustafa told reporters on Tuesday that it was the same leopard, which killed a resident in the Katha Shakura Rihari reserved forest at the start of the month.

He said a boy, who panicked and fled after seeing the leopard, suffered injuries by falling into a ravine.

Mr Mustafa said the residents had requested the police and divisional wildlife officer for catching the leopard, but to no avail.

Divisional wildlife officer Taimur Shah denied that the leopard came down to Gar Gali area and killed goats.

He said the motion infrared cameras installed at the entry and exist points of reserved forest didn’t record the movement of any leopard.

“We have launched an inquiry to ascertain what exactly happened in Katha Shakura Rihari reserved forest,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2020