MANSEHRA: The residents of Shinkiari and its suburbs here on Sunday complained about illegal fishing in the Siren River with the hunters allegedly using bleach powder, electric current and explosives to kill fish.

`The illegal fish hunting through explosives and bleach powder has led to extinction of the indigenous Mullah fish and other species in river,` Faisal Peer, a resident, told reporters.

`We have witnessed a large number of tiny fish floating on the surface of water and at riversides as they were killed by bleach powder,` he said.

Mr Peer said hunters mixed the powder in water and when fish fell unconscious, they started netting them.

Another local, Mir Shah Khan, said the people living along the Siren River were also being affected by the rampant use of bleach powder and explosives to hunt fish.

`Our people, especially children, who go to the river to bath, have had skin problems and contracted other diseases.

Animals drinking water from the river also suffer from different ailments,` he said.

Mr Khan said the government should put a ban illegal fishing, which was notonly continuing in Siren River in Shinkiari but also in other mountainous parts of the Siren valley.

`Fishing through any sort of powder, electric current and explosives is strictly forbidden and a culpable act under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Fisheries and Aquaculture Act, 2022, but the fisheries department is yet to initiate crackdown on the culprits,` Shah Khan regretted.

SUICIDE: A young girl on Sunday allegedly committed suicide in Lohar Banda area here.

Police said they had yet to ascertain the reason behind the suicide.

A Rescue 1122 team rushed to the spot and shifted the body to King Abdullah Teaching Hospital for autopsy.

The police began an investigation after lodging FIR.

Meanwhile, five tourists, including a woman, sustained critical injuries when a car plunged into a ravine in Bisan area of Balakot.

A rescue team shifted the injured to the Civil Hospital Balakot, where doctors referred three of them to Ayub Medical Complex Hospital, Abbottabad.

According to rescuers, the family of Sohail Arshad was on way back to Sargodha after a trip to Kaghan valley, when the vehicle they were travelling in went out of the driver`s control on the Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad Road.