Crimes and accidents: Six killed, 19 injured in Hazara

Man kills wife over family dispute; body of Afghan national found.

MANSEHRA:

Six people were killed and 19 injured in separate incidents in Hazara on Thursday.

A child was killed while and 18 others including three women were wounded when a passenger jeep plunged into a roadside gorge near Jalkot, Kohistan on Thursday afternoon. The cause of the accident was overloading, witnesses said.

According to the police, a passenger jeep en route to Jalkot from Goshali village was carrying over 40 passengers, several of them on the roof and sides of the vehicle, when it broke down while climbing a steep hill. As the jeep started moving backwards, those passengers travelling on the roof and sides of the vehicle jumped off but the children and elderly men and women inside the jeep could not escape. The jeep fell ran off the road and plunged into the roadside ravine, killing a boy and seriously injuring all other passengers. The injured were shifted to Dasu Rural Health Centre (RHU), where doctor and paramedical staff was absent from duty.

This infuriated the villagers, who ransacked the RHU and blocked the Karakoram Highway for over an hour. The protesters dispersed on the request of DCO Aqil Badshah.

The injured were later shifted to Ayub Medical Complex Abbottabad. The boy who died in the accident was identified as Sherzada, 8.

In the second incident, a woman and her three minor children were killed when a car fell off a hill in Nathiagali.

Police and witnesses said that Muhammad Asif, a resident of Lahore, was on tour to Nathiagali with his family. He parked his car along the road near Changla Gali to purchase some snacks for his family, but as the car was parked in gear on a steep road, the gear slipped and the car started moving backwards until it fell off the hill.

The victims were shifted to Ayub Medical Complex Abbottabad, where Sadia Bibi, 32, her sons Saeed, 8, Ahsan, 10, and her daughter Asia Bibi, 11, were pronounced dead. Their daughter Asma, 13, was critically injured.

In the third incident, a man shot dead his wife over a family dispute in Oghi.

Police said Mehnaz Bibi, 25, a resident of Labar Gali Badral village, was cooking food when her husband, Sher Ahmed, entered into an altercation with her. As the dispute got heated, Ahmed shot dead Bibi using a pistol and fled from the scene.

In the fourth incident, a mutilated body of an Afghan national was recovered from near Labarkot.

Doctors said that the victim was strangulated and his eyes and lips were removed using a sharp object. The deceased was identified as Ahmed Yar, 25, a fruit and vegetable vendor. Family sources said that he left for an unknown place after receiving a call a day before Eid and did not return.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2012.