LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), Jan 3: Transporters blocked the Peshawar-Torkhum Highway for at least five hours on Tuesday after their rival group forcibly disembarked some passengers, including ladies, from their vehicles in Zakhakhel area.

The two groups are at loggerheads over having an equal share in the number of vehicles leaving for Peshawar from the Torkhum flying coach terminal.

The Zakhakhel transporters had been demanding an equal share in the number of vehicles leaving for Peshawar while the Khugakhel insist that they being the owners of the Torkhum terminal would have preference over other transporters.

More than a 100 mini-coaches ply daily between Peshawar and Torkhum.

The local administration had sometime back tried to resolve the issue but in vain.

While taking notice of the road blockade, the authorities on Tuesday sent a delegation of local elders and councillors to make the transporters end their protest.

Later, the assistant political agent, Landi Kotal, along with a contingent of the Khasadar Force went there and forced the drivers to end their blockade. The Khasadar Force rounded up the president of transporters union, Haji Khalid, along with a dozen protesting drivers and locked them in the Landi Kotal prison on charges of taking the law into their hands.

The dispute had first started after the owners of the flying coach stand increased the tax levied on vehicles using the terminal.