KOHAT: District police officer Sohaib Ashraf on Saturday set up two special snap checking squads for the arrest of illegal Afghan nationals and curbing intra-provincial and inter-provincial smuggling of weapons and drugs.

These police squads would conduct checking of vehicles on Kohat-Peshawar highway, Kohat-Darra Adamkhel road, Kohat- Rawalpindi highway, Bannu road, Mianwali road, Nizampur road and link roads with the tribal belt.

Officials of the new squad during snap checking on different routes seized nine small machineguns, 18 shotguns, 140 pistols, 15 rifles, and 271 chargers of weapons of different bores.

Mr Sohaib had recently also set up 260 checkposts of rapid response squad along the tribal territory for controlling smuggling of weapons, drugs and other prohibited items from Orakzai Agency and arms manufacturing town of Darra Adamkhel of the Frontier Region, Kohat.

Meanwhile, the police have arrested 1,152 alleged outlaws, including smugglers, during the ongoing search and strike operation in last two weeks. Arms, ammunition and drugs have also been recovered during the operation.

The operation against illegal Afghan refugees, smugglers and criminals was being led by the district police officer for the last four months.

The police also conducted operations in Kalo Khan Banda and Saidan Banda on Saturday and picked up 47 suspicious people and recovered 10 different kinds of weapons, 246 cartridges and 12 chargers. The suspects have been kept in the city police station for investigation.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2015

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