PESHAWAR, Aug 17: Illegal arms trade and gun-running in the Wazir Dand area of Khyber Agency have slumped due to the recent ban on the sale, aerial firing and display of all types of arms in the suburbs of Peshawar.

There are some 150 arms and ammunitions shops in the market situated near the provincial capital.

For the first time, the political authorities banned display of arms in Jamrud Tehsil under the Frontier Crimes Regulations in an attempt to check the weapons flow from the Khyber Agency to other parts of the country, an official said.

The additional secretary of home and tribal affairs department, Manzoor Ahmad, told Dawn on Saturday that the ban was part of the deweaponization policy and the government had directed political agents of the seven agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to halt arms exhibition in the administrative parts of their areas.

“The government exempted only Darra Adamkhel,” the secretary said, adding that people of Darra Adamkhel had no other source of income, so they had been granted relaxation.

Darra Adamkhel is believed to be the biggest arms manufacturing town and thousands of families are associated with the trade.

The government has yet to extend the law dealing with the display of arms to the tribal area.

The small town of Wazir Dand, just inside the tribal area of Khyber Agency and adjacent to Peshawar, is a known selling and supply point of all kinds of weapons as well as hashish and opium. Chinese, Egyptian, English, German, Indian, Iranian, Russian and US-made weapons of different bore are available there.

Interestingly, the administration has apparently exempted the drug and narcotics dealers from the ban as they are running their business as usual.

The assistant political agent of Jamrud, Riaz Mahsood, said that they had received directives from the provincial home department to enforce the ban on illegal arms business in Wazir Dand market in letter and in spirit. Under the FCR, he added, the violators would face fine or prison, or both.

Malang Jan, an arms dealer, said the administration had served notices on dealers to wind up their business following which the dealers had shifted to Landi Kotal, Bara and Darra Adamkhel. He believed the ban would not serve the purpose as other markets were still operative.