PESHAWAR, June 15: A big cache of heavy arms and ammunition was seized and three ‘terrorists’ having links with a militant outfit in Sindh were arrested from a Karachi-bound passenger bus in Matani area here on Sunday.

The police were on high alert for the last couple of weeks after getting information about the smuggling of heavy arms and ammunition from the tribal area to several parts of Sindh, including Karachi, said Capital City Police chief Tanvirul Haq Sipra at a press conference held at the Police Headquarters here on Sunday.

The CCP chief said on Sunday morning the police succeeded in foiling the arms and ammunition smuggling and arrested three terrorists, one of them from Khairpur (Sindh). Another accomplice of the three, who also belonged to Sindh, escaped.

The arms, ammunition and narcotics included one anti-aircraft gun with 3,400 cartridges, eight rockets with fuses, 340 rounds of 44-bore gun, 1,250 bullets of 7.62-bore gun, 20 handgrenades, 440 cartridges of 7mm rifle, 200 bullets of 8mm rifle, three Kalashnikovs, 10 30-bore pistols, 15 spare parts of pistols, four kilogram heroin and 200 kilogram hashish.

The CCP chief said the arms and ammunition were being smuggled for terrorists activities in Sindh, particularly in Karachi.

Mr Sipra said the ‘terrorists’ had placed the contraband in hidden cavities in the bus (Peshawar-E 6478) and were on way to general bus stand to pick up the passengers for Karachi when the police arrested the three near Matani but their accomplice, who was driving the vehicle, escaped.

Those arrested are: Habib Khan, son of Abdul Ghani, a resident of Matani; Mushtaq Ahmad, son of Mohammad Nawaz, a resident of Ghaznikhel (Lakki Marwat) and Mumtaz Ali, son of Dhani Bakhsh, a resident of Khairpur (Sindh).

During the preliminary investigation, the CCP chief said, the accused disclosed the names of their accomplices, who mostly belonged to Sindh and also admitted to have links with a militant outfit.

Mr Sipra denied to disclose the name of the militant outfit. He said they were in touch with Sindh police to net their accomplices.

To a query, he told the mediamen: “I can say they are terrorists, not arms carriers.”

Sources in police told Dawn that sensitive documents mentioning names and destinations of the arms supply in several parts of Sindh, including Karachi, were also seized.

They said all the three arrested and the one escaped were drivers of heavy vehicles, and according to their plan, Mumtaz Ali had to drive the passenger bus from Dera Ismail Khan to Karachi.

The sources maintained that Mumtaz Ali was in the city for the last few days and was a guest of Malik Shams-ud-Din, a former police official and councillor.

“I came for a short visit to Peshawar and was going to Karachi when the police implicated me in the false smuggling case,” the young short-bearded Mumtaz Ali told Dawn. But he admitted to be an activist of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-F.

The two others also denied the charges when they were produced before the journalists, and said they wanted to visit Karachi when the police arrested them.