8 of family killed as car falls into ravine in Kohistan

MANSEHRA: Eight members of a family, including a man, his wife and four children, were killed when a car plunged into a ravine in the Matta Banda area of Lower Kohistan on Thursday.

The vehicle was en route to Punjab from Gilgit-Baltistan when the driver, while negotiating a sharp turn on the Karakoram Highway, lost control of the steering and it fell into the gorge.

Personnel from Rescue 1122, police, and local volunteers rushed to the scene and, after a hectic one-hour effort, recovered the bodies and shifted them to the District Headquarters Hospital, Pattan.

“We have shifted all eight bodies to a nearby health facility, from where they will be sent to Rawalpindi,” District Police Officer Lower Kohistan Taimur Khan told reporters.

The DPO said the accident occurred in a particularly dangerous section of the highway adjacent to the Indus River. He commended the professionalism of the rescue teams in retrieving the bodies and transporting them to the hospital.

The victims were identified as Asif Iqbal of Rawalpindi, his wife Memona Iqbal, their four children and two relatives, Aisha Siddique and Bushra Waseem.

“We have already advised drivers and motorists to exercise extreme caution while travelling through the mountainous terrain of Kohistan along the Karakoram Highway,” Khan added.

An official of Rescue 1122, Malik Sharif, said that the fatal accident rate along the Karakoram Highway, particularly in the Upper and Lower Kohistan districts, remained significantly high, largely because drivers from other parts of the country were unfamiliar with the challenging road conditions.