KOHAT, July 3: Law-enforcement agencies arrested leader of a notorious inter-provincial gang of kidnappers and car snatchers and secured release of a hostage from his custody during an operation in Darra Adamkhel, Administrator Frontier Region (Kohat) Arshad Majeed Mohmand told newsmen here on Monday.

Ten vehicles were also recovered from various places owned by Sakhi Badshah, the most wanted criminal in Darra Adamkhel. He had taken six-year-old Naida hostage and wanted to use her as a shield while escaping a siege around his den. He had picked the child from a nearby house while climbing a mountain to take position.

The administrator FR said that Badshah was wanted in 16 cases of kidnapping, car lifting and extortion. Recently his gang had kidnapped Dr Raheem Bangash from Darra Adamkhel, a young boy Saifur Rehman from Gumbat in Kohat. The gang, he said, was also involved in abduction of Dr Hassanul Wahab of Cherat, two Sui Northern Gas Company officials and a number of car lifting cases.

His partners used to hire taxis from rent-a-car in Punjab and bring them to him in Darra Adamkhel and he used to sell the same to buyers in parts or in one piece. He was the mastermind of a famous case in which a gang wearing police uniforms entered a house in Peshawar and looted Rs1.2 million a few years back.

Badshah, the administrator said, was wanted by the Punjab and the NWFP police in cases of heinous crimes committed during the last 20 years but he had been taking shelter in Peshawar or Khyber Agency.

He said Badhsah would be presented before a jirga of his Akhorwal tribe and they would suggest proper punishments for him in different cases. He said that a criminal like Badshah should spend rest of his life in jail.

He said that two members of his gang, Akhtar Munir and Haq Nawaz, had already been arrested. Only Imran, the forth member of the gang, was still at large, he added.

FAKE CURRENCY: The administrator said that the federal government had given them a list of 24 Darra Adamkhel tribesmen involved in the illegal activity of fake currency and 15 of them had so far been arrested.