DERA GHAZI KHAN: Choti Zaireen police on Friday took 11 employees of a private construction company into its custody on the suspicion that they might have links with South Waziristan militants.

All hailing from South Waziristan and Dera Ismail Khan, they have been serving for the last five years in the company working on Kachhi Canal.

The area where the company is engaged in lining the canal is close to sensitive installations, including the Dera airport.

The labourers and drivers belonging to the NWFP are working under contractor Ameer Mehsud.

DSP Riaz Bokhari said the arrests were made as precautionary measures and they would be released if the interrogators found that they had no links with militants.

Meanwhile, in Faisalabad, an intelligence (law-enforcement) agency took into custody four suspects during two raids and seized a cache of arms from them, sources told Dawn.

They said the agency personnel raided a seminary in Chak 196-JB, Ghona, and arrested two men identified as Yasir and Babar, aged between 22 and 24 years.

They seized arms recovered from the two. They said the raid was conducted on information given by Qari Zahid who is already in the custody of law enforcers.

In the other raid, two relatives Asif and Nasir were arrested in Dijkot in the wake of the Rawalpindi General Headquarters attack.