MUZAFFARABAD: Two men and a teenage girl were killed and her two siblings were injured in a road accident on Sunday, officials and witnesses said.

The accident occurred near Chhoon village, some 19 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad, when a Suzuki car with five persons on board veered off course and plunged into Neelum River, which flows more than 500 feet down the road in that particular area, they said.

The victims who were identied as Ejaz Mashkoor, Sajid Shakoor and Samida, Nadia and Surayya, belonged to Nagdar Kiani and its adjacent Kasabpora village in the upper belt of Neelum valley and were returning to Rawalpindi where the girls were acquiring religious education in a seminary, they said.

Ejaz was at the wheels of the ill-fated vehicle which he had brought from Rawalpindi on rent.

In-charge of Rescue 1122 Centre in Patikka Malik Nadeem told Dawn that his team used ropes to descend to the riverbank and retrieve the victims from the semi submerged wreckage of car, amid heavy downpour.

Both men, who were in their twenties, had already died while the girls, in their teens, were recovered alive and brought to BHU Patikka where Surraya succumbed to her wounds, while others were shifted to Muzaffarabad, he said.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2021