PESHAWAR, Feb 7: Local police rounded up 60 students, mostly Afghans, on suspicion of terror links during a raid on a religious seminary Tuesday morning and detained them in the nearby Yakatoot police station.

Dozens of irate students and teachers of the seminary later blocked the City Circular Road near Yakatoot police station but ran away after police baton-charged and teargassed them to clear the road to the traffic.

Police said they raided Jamia Zubairia seminary near Science Superior College in Yakatoot area on a tip-off that some terror suspects had taken refuge there and arrested 60 students.

According to them, personnel of the city’s different police stations cordoned off the area during the raid to quell possible trouble.

A police official said the seminary raid was part of the investigation into the recent blasts and kidnappings for ransom in the city. He said the ‘seminary operation’ remained successful as many suspects, including Afghan nationals illegally living in the country, were taken into custody. The official said the arrested seminarians had been kept under surveillance.

As the news of the raid and arrests spread, locals and families of the detained seminarians showed up.

Along with other students and teachers, they later blocked the City Circular Road near the police station, where detainees were kept, and linked their dispersal to release of ‘innocent children’ amidst sloganeering against police and the government.

They claimed that police had denied food and water to the captured seminarians in illegal confinement.

A protestor said the detainees were aged between 10 and 15 years and had nothing to do with terrorism. Seminary teachers accused police of raiding the premises without prior notice.

“We will contact people at other seminaries and Wafaqul Madaris (a seminary watchdog) to take up the matter with the government,” a teacher said.

As protestors blocked the road, a police inspector called in their representatives for dialogue but they refuse to show up and continued with the blockade demanding unconditional release of seminarians. Later, police baton charged and teargassed protestors, who fled to clear the road.

When contacted, Superintendent of Police (City Circle) Imtiaz Shah said around 40 of the 60 arrested students were Afghans living in the country without valid documents.

“We asked them to produce documents for their stay but they failed. Therefore, we arrested them under Section 14 of the Foreign Act,” he said.

The SP said rest of the seminarians were freed after brief interrogation and the locals’ talks with police. He said the seminary raid was routine matter and such actions would continue.

Mr Imtiaz said police had been checking suspected people and Afghan nationals without valid documents were deported. He said police were neither against seminaries nor their students but it was their duty to check suspected people.