Yep, close to the top of the hill indeed, but the vast majority of CFIT accidents occur on the highest 500 feet of local terrain. We don't miss by much.
I would have to assume this Airblue aircraft was equipped with EGPWS, as the date of manufacture is 2000 and EGPWS was standard on Airbus by then.
There should be no reason to shut off EGPWS going into Islamabad based on database, OPRN has been in the database since first EGPWS in mid-1990s.
As mentioned above, Airbus EGPWS solution did not include GPS input for many years, just FMS, and map shift does happen as B-Med at Addis Ababa vividly demonstrated. When EGPWS and nav data are both using garbage, watch out -
Report: British Mediterranean A320 at Addis Abeba on Mar 31st 2003, wet VOR nearly causes two CFITs and
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources...0Report%20.pdf
Get that GPS into your EGPWS and keep that terrain/airport database up to date.