BAJAUR, March 2: Four armed men took away around 250 goats and lambs, worth more than Rs700,000, at gunpoint from a herdsman at the Dabbar area here.

Hazrat Gul, father of the herdsman, Ali Gul, while lodging a report with the local administration on Friday, said that his son was grazing the flock of lambs and goats at the mountains near the Dabbar area, when four armed men from the Mullah Syed village, came and took away the animals. They also beat his son for putting up resistance, he said.

The local administration, acting on the information, conducted a raid and arrested five suspects and sent them to jail, while operation for the arrest of the culprits is continuing.

Hazrat Gul, while talking to Dawn, said his family had no enmity with anybody, except that one of his cousins owed money to some people of the Mullah Syed village. The flock of lambs and goats might have been taken for ransom, he remarked.