Ther is no way of telling with cetainty specially when the area is a no go area for anyone from outside to visit and local population lives in a fear of losing their head if they talk against Taliban. Yesterday in Mangora just adjacent to Swat 3 ladies fron an NGO lost their lives…
Three female NGO workers, driver shot dead in Mansehra
Three female NGO workers, driver shot dead in Mansehra
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
By our correspondent
MANSEHRA: Three female workers of a USAID-funded project run by a non-governmental organisation, Rise International, and their driver were allegedly killed by militants in Kund Bangla area in the jurisdiction of Shinkiary Police Station on Monday.
A social mobiliser of the Rise International, Sadaf Yar Muhammad of Shabqadar, Charsada district, assistant education officer, Anjum Zeb of Mansehra and an unidentified female worker and their driver Saifullah of Pabbi, Nowshera, were on their way to Mansehra from a mountainous area of Kund Bangla when some unknown assailants attacked them, killing them on the spot.
The body of the driver was found at some distance from the vehicle in which the bullet-riddled bodies of the three female workers were lying in a pool of blood. Police rushed to the spot and shifted the bodies to Shinkiary Rural Health Centre, which were, later on, shifted to King Abdullah Teaching Hospital in Mansehra for autopsy.
No group or individual claimed the killings till our going to the press. The project coordinator of Rise International, Shezad Ahmed, told The News that the NGO worked in the education sector in collaboration with the education department and covered 18 union councils of Mansehra Tehsil. He said the team that met the fatal incident had just visited the area to mobilise the local community to send their children to schools.
The official said they had established the Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) at the village level and their female staff worked for the girl student community. He said the Rise had not received any threat from any quarter.
Akhtar Hayyat Khan, district police officer (DPO), told The News that he was not in a position to say anything about the incident at this stage. He said the post-mortem of the bodies was being carried out and only after the preliminary investigations he would be able to give any details about the incident.