Tourists throng Kaghan Valley in record numbers, face shortage of petrol

• Tourists throng Kaghan Valley of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Mansehra district in record numbers. 
  
• Around 0.7 million vehicles carrying tourists have entered valley so far and more motorists are on the way, says police officer.  
• "We have never seen such a huge number of vehicles entering the valley," he says. 

MANSEHRA: Tourists thronged the Kaghan Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Mansehra district in record numbers this Eid ul Adha, with vehicles choking the roads and causing major traffic jams, Geo News reported Monday.

Tourists heading to the Kaghan Valley were facing fuel shortage as the local petrol pumps failed to meet the huge demand for fuel. Long queues of vehicles could be seen at every filling station in the area.       

“Around 0.7 million vehicles carrying tourists have entered the valley so far and more motorists are on the way to this picturesque destination,” District Police Officer (DPO) Asif Bahadur said.

Tourists, who started rushing to the Kaghan Valley from the first day of Eid ul Adha, are still pouring in.

“We have never seen such a huge number of vehicles entering the valley but we are doing our best to manage the traffic flow within the available resources,” the police officer said.

The tourists who flocked to the valley from within the country and even abroad visited the Babusar Top, Saiful Muluk Lake, Lulusar and even Dodi Pat Sar.

“The Mansehra-Naran-Jalkhad road which links KP with Gilgit- Baltistan is in dire need of blacktopping and potholes must be filled,” Mohammad Jabran, a tourist from Karachi said.

He said that until the MNJ Road and its arteries, leading to the Saiful Muluk Lake and other such exotic places, were not carpeted, the prime minister’s tourism vision couldn’t be a success.

Hussain Deen, the chairperson of the Hoteliers Association in the Kaghan Valley, said that hotels and restaurants were full.

“The hoteliers and visitors are strictly following coronavirus standard operating procedures set by the government for the tourism industry,” he added.