KOHAT, Jan 28: Darra Adamkhel was calm but tense on Monday as security forces consolidated their positions on hilltops in the area.

Militants who had occupied a Frontier Constabulary checkpoint in Kotal and parts of mountains near the Kohat tunnel escaped, leaving behind an anti-aircraft gun with live rounds and 30kg of explosives.

Meanwhile, 70-member bomb disposal squad of the army cleared the two kilometre long tunnel with the help of metal detectors and 20 sniffer dogs.

Despite success in the operation, authorities remained clueless about the four ammunition trucks which had been seized by militants on Wednesday, which was the major reason for launching the ongoing operation. Also, the whereabouts of nine security officials, including two army captains, were still unknown.

Two women and a child were killed when the car they were riding came under fire as it approached the tunnel near the Tor Chappar area, a tribal elder told Dawn at the army’s relief camp in Kohat on Monday.

The authorities did not allow displaced people and vehicles to use the tunnel and made announcements in Darra Adamkhel on loudspeakers that an indefinite curfew had been imposed within one kilometer radius and anybody trying to come close to it would be shot.

Despite the announcements, some people tried to use the tunnel and troops opened fire on two vehicles, killing a man and injuring his brother and a relative.

Security forces repulsed a major militant attack from Khyber Agency at their headquarters in Darra Adamkhel.

Operation Coordinator Kamran Zeb said militants who had entered from Akakhel side of the Khyber Agency and attacked the military camp at the Government Degree College in Darra Adamkhel. There was an exchange of heavy fire for three hours.

He said the army dislodged militants from the Kotal hills on Sunday night. The militants, it may be mentioned, had been firing rockets from the hills on the Kohat Cantonment. The police and Frontier Constabulary took over the hills after three days of fighting.

Militants, however, are holding up in Wargar Baba and Shahbaz Nika areas of Darra Adamkhel adjoining Orakzai Agency and the army launched a fresh offensive on Monday morning. Helicopter gunships and artillery units were taking part in the operation.

There were reports that the militants occupied the Darra Adamkhel hospital after they had been pushed back from the Kotal hills, but an official claimed that the hospital and major areas were under the control of security forces.

The militants, meanwhile, blew up a bridge on the Kohat-Rawalpindi road causing damage to the railway track. Train service between Kohat and Rawalpindi was temporarily suspended.

The militants had planted 10kg explosives under the bridge, the bomb disposal squad said. A rail car left for Rawalpindi after a delay of three hours, the station master said.

The militants also damaged a 132KV electricity tower in Darra Adamkhel on Sunday night and power supply to southern areas of the NWFP was affected.

Reports reaching here from the Orakzai Agency said that militants attacked the Yakh Kandao checkpoint in Upper Orakzai on Sunday night.

The local administration sealed all entrance routes to the Friendship Tunnel after reports that some suicide bombers might try to destroy it, the tunnel’s security in-charge Major Sabir said.

Kohat’s assistant coordination officer Muddasar Riaz Malik told Dawn that the local administration and army had established a relief camp at a government high school for the families coming from Darra.

“So far 3,000 people have reached Kohat and 1,065 people are being provided food, medicines, milk, rice and quilts at the camp. A survey team is visiting parts of Kohat where the tribesmen have been given shelter by their relatives,” Mr Malik said.

Some tribesmen at the camp have complained that they are not being given quilts and food and the army kept them waiting outside.

They demanded that the army should immediately stop the operation in Darra Adamkhel so that they could return to their homes. They also demanded that those who had lost their near and dear ones and suffered property losses should be duly compensated by the government.