Tourist deaths: Case closed as family forgives driver

ISLAMABAD:

The case of two women from the same family who were burnt alive when a van caught fire at Daman-e-Koh has been closed after the driver appeared before the police and the family pardoned him, accepting the incident as an accident.

Investigation officer Almas Khan said that the incident took place because “the vehicle was old”. He added that the family also pardoned the driver after analysing the situation and the driver’s willful surrender before the police. “It was an accident and the family felt the driver was not responsible,” said Khan. “No case was registered.”

The family had come from Karachi to attend a wedding in Taxila and decided to go sightseeing in the capital after renting a passenger van from Taxila. With one man, 12 women and seven children on board, their vehicle, a Toyota Hiace, was having trouble climbing the steep hill and started heating up, said Khan.

The driver, Umer Khan, 45, then asked everyone onboard to disembark so the vehicle could climb and be checked at a flat rest area.

As soon as the vehicle began moving up, it caught fire and went downhill after the driver panicked and jumped out at the sight of flames rising from under the bonnet. The passengers standing on the roadside were in the path of the vehicle, which hit and engulfed 75-year-old Hasan Jan in fire. Seeing this, Mehreen Tahir, 22, went to try and save the Jan, only to be engulfed in the flames herself.

Both women got trapped under the burning vehicle and died before they could be rescued, Khan said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2014.