Motorboat catches fire in Khanpur Dam

HARIPUR: A motorboat caught fire in the Khanpur Dam due to some mechanical fault, police and eyewitnesses said on Sunday evening.

The picnickers said that the boat was carrying some students who luckily escaped unhurt. However, police denied that the boat was carrying any picnicker when it caught fire due to some mechanical fault in its engine.

Waheed Ahmed, a picnicker from Wah Cantt, told journalists that a group of school children from different parts of the province were on a picnic to Khanpur reservoir and enjoying a boat ride.

He said that one of the motorboats they hired to take a round of the Khanpur’s water and there were five to six students were riding a motor boat when its engine developed some mechanical fault and started emitting flames and all of sudden the flames engulfed the motorboat.

However, the boatmen and rescue workers rushed to the burning boat and rescued the students and the boatman and shifted them to the bank safely. An eyewitness confirmed that all the students and boatman escaped unhurt but the boat burnt.

When contacted, the police and rescue workers confirmed that a motorboat was burnt in the middle of the reservoir but there was not a single passenger riding that time and the boatman was busy in test drive after some repair work when it caught fire and burnt.