PESHAWAR, May 3: The city police on Tuesday sealed the Hayatabad township and carried out a three-hour search of incoming and outgoing vehicles aimed at checking the increasing incidents of street crime, officials said.

Senior officials of the Capital City Police were deployed at all the entry and exit points of the township who conducted the search from 4pm to 7pm. The sources said that the police did not allow anybody to enter the area without ‘valid’ reasons’.

In recent months, street crime in the township such as snatching of cell phones, bicycles and motorbikes has registered a sharp increase. The incidents of robberies and car snatching were also reported in many areas.

Hayatabad is adjacent to the tribal area of Khyber Agency and the crime graph keeps rising despite a barbed-wire fence erected in the area by the City Development and Municipal Department to protect the residents against such incidents.

ARRESTED: Meanwhile, the city police arrested 43 proclaimed offenders and recovered 11 Kalashnikovs, three Kalakovs, 27 rifles, 58 pistols, two dynamites and 2,263 cartridges of different bores during the past one week, said an official statement issued here on Tuesday. The police also recovered 14 kilograms of hashish from the possession of arrested outlaws, it added.