KOHAT, July 3: The authorities have given four days to the tribal elders of the famous illegal gun-manufacturing town of Darra Adam Khel to hand over 64 hardened criminals wanted by the government.

These men were allegedly involved in kidnapping for ransom, printing of fake currency, educational certificates, gun-running and have been at large for the past several years, deputy administrator of the frontier region of Kohat, Zahir Shah, told newsmen at a press conference here on Saturday afternoon.

He said that under the special directives of the NWFP governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, he had asked a representative jirga of the big six tribes to hand over these men by next Wednesday.

He said that he had conveyed this message to the leaders of the area which included former MNA and senator Baz Gul Afridi, Malik Akhtar Khan, Sher Afghan and other members of the jirga.

He said that these steps were being taken to keep peace in the adjoining settled districts of Kohat and Peshawar.

He told newsmen that since his appointment last year, he had destroyed poppy cultivated on 14 kanals of land and now, he claimed, the area was poppy-free.

He said that the government was trying to provide alternative sources of income to the tribesmen employed in the illegal businesses. For this purpose, more than Rs360 million had been approved for various development schemes in the area, to be consumed in two years.

The NWFP government had allocated Rs80 million each in the recent budget whereas Rs150 million would be spent from the MNAs fund.

Similarly, the government had sanctioned Rs80 million in the ADP for the development of Darra Adam Khel.

These funds would be spent on general education, technical education, irrigation, mineral development, agriculture, forest, public health engineering and preservation of wildlife.