Three teenage friends died after drowning in a riverside lake in Shonarovi Lasht Shotar area of the Upper Chitral Headquarters, Booni, Rescue 1122 informed on Friday. Initial report said the three friends had gone to the lake for a picnic and when the locals noticed that the boys were missing from the scene, they called Rescue 1122 for help. The Rescue 1122 team reached the spot in time to search for the boys in the lake however they could only find all the three dead after efforts of around one hour. The rescuers after retrieving the bodies shifted them to the THQ Hospital, Booni for medico legal procedure. The ill-fated friends were identified as Murtaza, (14), Mehboob (13) and Fayyaz (12). It needs a mention here that local people create artificial lakes alongside the rivers for hunting ducks coming from the coastal area of Russia and oblivious to the depth of these lakes, the local people sometimes drown in deep water.
The bodies of the three friends, when reached the Shotarovi Lasht Shotar village, highly moving scenes were witnessed as most of the people were crying to mourn the death of three young boys. Meanwhile at least five people including a woman of the same family were killed and four others seriously injured when the jeep they were traveling in plunged into a deep gorge in Shangla on Friday. Police said the ill-fated family was returning from a wedding when their Jimny jeep met an accident in Rageshvam Bailan Tangay area and fell into the gorge. The Rescue workers pulled the bodies and injured from the wreckage of the vehicle after hectic efforts. The four seriously injured people including a woman and two children were rushed to Pooran Tehsil Headquarters Hospital for treatment.
