MUZAFFARABAD: A couple was killed and five others including a minor boy were injured after a speeding car they were on board fell down the road in Jhelum valley district on Tuesday, police and witnesses said.

The ill-fated car was part of a wedding party heading towards Muzaffarabad and was carrying the groom, his father, his sister, brother-in-law and a nephew and two friends in addition to the driver.

At Jigal, a spot on the outskirts of district headquarters Hattian Bala, the speeding car drove through the right side of the road to avoid an uneven portion on the left side and in doing so went out of driver’s control and fell down on a slope towards the riverside.

However, two trees stopped it from diving into the Jhelum River.

The accident that reduced the car to a wreckage left Adnan, 26, and his wife Natasha, 22, dead on the spot. The couple’s three-year-old son Usman was among the injured.

Other injured included Saddam Latif, 21, (the groom), his father Latif Khan, 55, his friends Raja Tauseef, 22, and Rameez Mughal, 22, and driver Mubarak Shah, 45.

The groom and his friend Tauseef were discharged after treatment at District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital Hattian Bala while the remaining three victims were shifted to Combined Military Hospital Muzaffarabad owing to their critical injuries.

The condition of Rameez was stated to be critical, as he had been put on a ventilator, hospital sources said.

At DHQ Hospital, relatives of the victims got furious over lack of treatment facilities, and chanted slogans against the authorities concerned.

Ajaz Meer, a Hattian Bala based journalist, blamed mounds of earth in front of an octroi post along the uneven portion of road from where the vehicle had changed its course for the accident.

“The octroi people had placed mounds of earth on the main road (opposite to the riverside) to force vehicles coming from the upstream areas to reduce their speed or stop to make them payments, notwithstanding the threat their act had been posing to the motorists,” he said.

Claiming that four accidents had occurred due to the very reason in the recent past, he said local people had complained to the authorities about it many a time, but to no avail.

Mr Meer also regretted that law enforcers in the area had turned a blind eye towards overloading in public and private vehicles, plying through various local hilly routes.

Published in Dawn, October 6th, 2021