At least six people were killed and eight others, including the driver, were injured after a vehicle carrying voters plunged down a steep ravine in the Chhari locality of the Dudhnial district of the Neelum Valley, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), on Sunday.
After 31 years, the first phase of the local government elections was held in three districts of the Muzaffarabad Division, and the van was bringing Thanda Pani village people who were women voters.
Around 12.30 pm, the jeep is said to have gone off the road and fallen into a ravine that is 300 feet deep. The police then started a rescue effort and transported the injured and the corpses to a hospital.
Six of the women in the ill-fated jeep perished on the scene, while six others were allegedly in critical condition.
Polling was temporarily halted as a result of the event.
A local news source quoted a disaster management official as saying that the van was transporting more people than it could hold.
The autonomous state’s prime minister, Sardar Tanveer Ilyas, expressed sorrow and grief at the tragedy, calling it “heart-wrenching.” He also announced in a tweet that he has ordered the government to cooperate with the injured in whatever way possible.
Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the foreign minister, too expressed sorrow over the tragedy.
According to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) media cell, the party chairman shared the bereaved families’ grief equally, and that local office-bearers and party members should do the same.
