12 die, 25 injured in Karak, Haripur road mishaps

KARAK/ HARIPUR: Twelve passengers were killed and 25 others were injured in two separate road accidents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday.

Police officials said that 10 passengers, including women and children, were killed and eight others seriously injured when a speedy tractor-trolley ran over a Peshawar-bound passenger van on Indus Highway Karak district.

The officials said that the van was on its way to Peshawar from North Waziristan and the incident happened in the jurisdiction of Kara Police Station. The personnel of Rescue 1122 and local people immediately rushed to the spot, retrieved the bodies and injured from the wreckage of the van, they said, adding, the injured were rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital Karak. According to doctors, 10 bodies and eight injured were brought to the hospital. Those killed in the accident included Naseemullah, Mullah Khan, Naik Mali Khan, Bashirullah, Mastamina and Masti Khan. The names of the two children who have been killed in the accident could not be ascertained. Doctors said some of the injured persons were referred to a hospital in Peshawar due to their precarious conditions.

Meanwhile, two passengers were killed and 13 others, including three foreign nationals and a teenage girl, injured when a Rawalpindi-bound passenger bus fell into a roadside drain near Shah Maqsood Interchange, some 6 km from district headquarters, on the Hazara Motorway.

The cause of the accident, according to police, was reckless driving while the injured passengers claimed the accident occurred when the driver dozed off. Police officials quoted the passengers as saying that the Rawalpindi-bound NATCO company’s bus, left Gilgit during the early hours of Tuesday and the driver lost control of the wheels when it reached near Shah Maqsood interchange of Hazara Motorway at around 6.30 am, and the speeding bus fell into the roadside drain, leaving 18 passengers injured.

The area people and rescue workers shifted the injured to Haripur Trauma centre where two of the eight injured were declared dead, five of them sustained serious injuries and rest of 11 slightly injured, said Dr Munawar Khan Afridi, Medical Superintendent District Headquarters Hospital. He said five of the injured were shifted to Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences Islamabad while the rest were discharged after first aid.

The deceased passengers, according to Dr Afridi and police records, were identified as Masroor, 55, resident of Yasin Gilgit and Zameer Abbas, 42, resident of Astor. Among the injured, according to police and hospital records, were three foreigners, who included John, a Czech Republic’s citizen and two Chinese namely Zu Chongzhi and Lyu Li Dong. Among other injured were Sidra Bibi 16, daughter of Masroor, Muhammad Fiyaz, Basharat Ali, Javed, Ghulamuddin, Mudassir Hussain, Himat Jan, Amjad Khan, bus driver, Mudassir Hassan and Akhtar Habib.