A 74-year-old man was murdered in an alleged incident of robbery near Naran. The incident took place on July 24. A group of four people were staying in a camp near Saral Pass, which is a few kilometres away from Noori Top.
A Facebook user named Faizan Sami posted about the incident in a group, The Karakoram Club.
“I Faizan Sami, Asfandyar, Mudassir and uncle ( father in law of Mudassir) left for Ratti Gali from basil trek via saral pass,” the user wrote in a Facebook post.
“Reached Saral pass about 6.30 pm on Sunday 24th of July 2022. we unpacked and set our camp over there. We had four local porters with horses. After dinner and relaxing we off to bed. We were sleeping in our tent at about 11.20 o clock and heard voices coming out. My uncle sat and asked them who it hearing this they start firing. uncle got shot we all started screaming. And came out they beat us with our hiking sticks. We were made to stand in a row outside,” added Faizan while narrating the horrific incident.
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“They asked for money and other stuff. we told them it was in the bags two of them went inside the tent while one was guarding us. When they saw the dead body one of them came out and told the other one they all started moving towards the tent. We slowly moved towards the downside and then started running. And hid in stones, after 15 minutes one of our porters come shouting our names. We then showed up and the porter told us that they too were looted. We then went to the tent they took all the bags one bag with money and the drone camera was under my jacket so it was left. They took almost 70,000. We covered the dead body in a tent, packed it well and went outside in search of help. After 3 hours of trekking, we reached a village on Noori’s top side. Anar Gul named person helped us a lot. He sends men along with one porter to bring dead bodies. we stayed there till morning. He sends men after the police and jeep.”
Talking to The Current, Faizan Sami said they heard noises around 11:15pm. His uncle shouted from the camp and asked, “Who are you?”
After hearing the noise, the robbers resorted to aerial fire which resulted in the death of the 74-year-old man named Raja Muhammad Azam.
The robbers made them sit 50 feet away from the camp. They asked them how many people were in the camp, and were told that they were a group of four people. Two of the robbers then went inside the camp to look for the fourth person and money.
“When they went inside the camp, they panicked after looking at the dead body and they called their fellow robber inside the camp,” Faizan told The Current.
After all of the robbers went inside, they took the opportunity to run away and they went “300 to 400 feet” away from the place to hide from them.
When they came back after a while after the robbers had left, they saw the dead body lying there. They left the dead body behind and went to ask for help to bring the dead body to a nearby village.
The FIR, a copy of which is available with The Current, was filed on July 25 in Naran. The police are still investigating the case.
