PESHAWAR: At least 17 people, including three children, were burned to death in northwest Pakistan yesterday when a gas cylinder exploded on a bus after it collided with a truck.
The bus was carrying passengers to the city of Bannu when the collision happened on a highway around 140 kilometres from Peshawar, the capital of the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“The gas cylinder installed in the bus leaked after the accident and it caught fire,” said Dil Nawaz Khan, a senior government official in Karak city, where the accident happened.
“All 18 people on board were burnt and only one passenger could survive. His condition is critical,” he said.
Hospital officials said three women and three children were among the dead.
Most of the bodies were badly burnt and could not be identified.
Sharif to visit Saudi for Umrah
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will travel to Saudi Arabia next Thursday to perform Umrah and offer his Jumatul Wida prayers in Kaaba on the following day along with his family.
Nawaz Sharif will also visit Madina for pilgrimage to the shrine of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).
Creating history, Sharif will fly to Saudi Arabia on an ordinary commercial flight and return on August 6 by another commercial flight.
In all probability he will fly by the national carrier for the pilgrimage.
Khan to skip multiparty meet
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan’s latest position on the now apparently aborted multiparty national security conference shows that he will not attend the conference.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has attached no importance to the PTI chief’s demand that an exclusive meeting should be called in which he be briefed by him and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on national security issues.
Imran Khan does not want to attend any such conference where top politicians will also be present. Thus, he wants preferential treatment that the prime minister is not willing to extend.
Agencies
