KOHAT, July 8 The government on Thursday delivered heavy arms and ammunition to the Kohat region police comprising three districts to build capability of the personnel to effectively deal with the scourge of militancy.

The Kohat and Karak got same quantity of heavy weapons which include 330 RPG launchers, 40 heavy machine guns, 30 12.79 MM guns (anti aircraft), 500 HE82 hand grenades, five 60 MM machine guns and 40 light machine guns.

Officials told Dawn that most of the weapons had been produced indigenously at the Wah Ordinance Factories and some military hardware had been purchased from China.

The Hangu district was provided double the quantity of these heavy weapons where extra force had been deployed due to its sensitive location and presence of foreign and local militants in adjoining Kurram and Orakzai Agencies.

The DIG, Kohat region, Abdullah Khan received and inspected the weapons at a ceremony held on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a four-day first ever war training of police force kicked off in Karak district to acquaint the police with handling of these weapons. The special teams of senior officers from the anti-terrorism squad of police would train the policemen. Later, batches of ten policemen each from Karak and Hangu and 20 policemen from Kohat would be given a month-long training at the OTS by the army.

Our Peshawar Bureau adds The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has approved establishment of a police station for Balya Mena area of Hangu district in order to improve the law and order situation in the region.

The approval was given by Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti here on Thursday.

He also approved 52 posts of various categories for the police station. Of them one post would be of inspector, one sub-inspector, three assistant sub-inspectors, four head constables, 40 constables and three class-4 employees.

Presently the number of policemen in Hangu was 699 and due to its geographical location increase in the manpower and their capacity building was need of the hour, the statement said.