Naran: Passenger vehicles attacked, 19 deaths confirmed
Our Correspondent
Giglit, August 16: As many as 19 people were hauled off three passenger vans they were travelling in and after verification of their identity bullets were sprayed on them by masked miscreants. The tragic incident took place early this morning at 7am at Lolo Sar area of Jhalkhat, Narran/Kaghan area, some 35 KMs downward towards Naran from Babusar top, Police said.
“ They have killed only 19 passengers, after checking their identities. All of them died on the spot”, District Police Officer Mansehra, Sher Akbar Khan told this correspondent by phone.
DPO Mansehra added that all three vans were Astor bound and headed from Rawal Pindi and were intercepted early morning. He said that the terrorist took the Identity documents of the victims with them and it was hard to recognize them by name but the people of same area identified them.
Police official further added that the bodies were being transported to Mansehra where doctors would perform post mortem and later bodies will be handed over to legal heirs, after identification.
Another Police officer of Gilgit-Baltistan on the condition of anonymity said that there were four vans and all these passengers were taken off the vans. He said that after identifying them they were lined up and sprayed with sprayed by the miscreants, before escaping .
The police officer who visited the site to assist his counterpart from the other side stated that when he reached the spots bodies were laying scattered and some were handcuffed.
“The same analogy of Kohistan incident was applied in this act of terrorism which shows the same group has carried out this incident” he said requesting anonymity.
The media faced difficulties in covering the incident because the site did not have signals of mobile and nor there was any contact through wireless.
The news of incident spread like fire in the Gilgit Baltistan as market in the Gilgit emptied of people as soon as it reached.
The Police official of Narran Police Station Shafi Gul told by phone that two foreign tourists along with their Pakistani guides were the first to reach the site of offense and reported to the Police.
Police identified those who were killed as Yaqqob Ali Son of Hussain, Sajid Hussain son of Bashir, Ijlal Hussain son of Khadim, Ghulam Mustafa son Of Khushal (Suni) Muhammad Hanif Son Ghulam Muhammad ,Mazhar Ali son of Hazar Ali ,Ghulam Nabiu son of Ghulam Haider ,Nisar son of Farman ,Ishtiaq son of Dolat Ali, Musharraf Alam Ali Muhammd and all of them belonged to Astore.
Furthermore, police identified them as Muhammad Hussain son of Najaf Ali a resident of Shah Faisal Colony Karachi, Finda Ali Son of Zulfiqar Ali ,Mansoor Khan son of Musa, Haider Aman son of Shaullah and they belonged to Bagrote.
The last one who was identified as Tahir Mehmood son of Abdul Qadir Mugal a resident of Gujranwala.
Four bodies could not be identified so far. There were two Sunnis among those who were identified while rest 13 were Shia and the sect of remaining four is yet to be known, added the Police officer.
There were region wide protest to denounce the act of terrorism and people demanded of the government to take action against the culprits.
A high level meeting of law enforcement agencies took place in Chief Minister house and Masajid Boards were taken on board.
Patrolling of the forces was increased and search of vehicles was begin. Till filing of this there was no report of any untoward incident from any part of the region
A barberian act which is surely against humanity and peace – I strongly condemn this one and attack on Minhas airbase at Kamra and of course all such incidents all over Pakistan and the world – my heartiest condolences to the relatives of victims – may Allah give us right guidance – aameen – regards
we the people of chillas should gaurentee the road safty to our NA people.
this is really great loss and shamefull act for humanity
Common peoples really feel helpless against these terrorists, when government and Pakistan army sworn to protect them.. are not protecting common and helpless peoples.
These are shameful acts.they want to destroy our beauty GB.Now army should take action .
There is no proper religion which teaches hate and killing of your neighbor. How are these people being taught to hate and kill? How can this even be justified in their minds as something of which God would approve? It is barbaric and no one who believes in God would do such terrorist acts against their brothers. Who is behind these planned attacks and what is their gain?
It is so sad to hear that age old hate still breeds in Gilgit Baltistan.
I don’t wanna think about it. Just middle finger up for them terrorists. These terrorists have no right to live. They shoot be shot at sight. Wish i had authoritires. 🙁
So sad to hear all these. We pray for peace to come to our peaceful area of Gilgit Baltistan.
the people who are doing this have a goal of disturbing the peace – gilgiti sunni and shia sit together in peace on the bus and they must sit together in peace to face this violence taken out on them – what is the attackers gain – the political motives behind this attack are not religious – Islam preaches peace and tolerance and allows freedom of religion as does the Pakistan constitution – Everyone must condemn these attacks peacefully and in a united way – celebrating diversity and wiping out prejudice – we must come to a point where intelligence is stopping these events before they happen as all people agree in the true Islamic ( and other religions as appropriate to their religous affiliation) core values and prevent such violence through social pressure and reporting of suspicious activity.
This is very shameful act,nobody is secure even in gilgit city. Army should take strong action against the terrorism and sectarian attacks. civil societies are requested to come farward and provide awareness about brotherhood, tolerance and peace. people of gilgit baltistan are very innocent and simple, there must be some third hand behind these shameful plans. it must be a part of some high level game.
relegion is root cause of all the violance. Nothing can be done except to educate masses so that they understand humanity is far above relegion.
Untill and Unless 1973 constitution is not restored in its original shape, the pease can not be gaurenteed. Bhutto was the culprit to amend the constitution in 1974 by declaring Ahmadi’s as non muslims. This was first time that the government bowed down to Religious extremsts and after that government could never control them.
By doing so, BHUTTO gave us the lesson of non-tolerance, and Zia afterwords stenghthend BHUTTO’s mission and made more laws which are resulting now in such incidents.
If the governemnt can not tolerate its minorities, then how can you expect extremists to tolerate.
In the history of mankind, Pakistan is the first and only state which has decided that what shall be the religion of the people and who is muslim and who is not.
very very tragic. as usual there will be comments from the govt officials and afterwards the so called and the most corrupt govt in the history of this country will forget about it. this situation is alarming. only kagan and gilgit baltistan were the peaceful areas for tourist where they can travel freely. but after couple of these identical incidents the people will think thousands of times before traveling to these areas. i think our army should wake up from slumber and take control of country and all the politicians should be life banned and their illegal assets should be taken back otherwise agar country na raha tu ye army b nahein rahe gi. jo govt people ko life security nahein de sakti use govt mein rahne ka koi haq nahein.
people party murda bad. pak army murda bad.
very sad part of GBians’ life as in the very short time of 6 months extremists have killed 70 pessengers on sharah-e-ekarakorum unfortunatly there was no action taken against the culpirts, specially the chilass incident in which all the culpirts were known to every one and all those who saw the vedio clips can recongnized the people involved in the tragig incident, the current unrest in GB after the death of 22 innocent people is natural but it should not be handled mistakenly for any further creation of law n order in the area, we should only work for the stability and peace of the region so that we could bring the envirnoment once we had as pradise on earth GB
state suject rule should be apply full in Gb and all those who came to Gilgit Baltistan should be expled in respect of UNO resolution otherwise we will soon inshalla contact UNO and other international organizations on this matter, those who are not native people are creating issue in the region and they brought terrisim and other evil practices withem in the region otherwise Gbians’ we re licing in the region centureis back very peacfully
Gilgit Baltistan Rights Forum