KOHAT: The police arrested two alleged human traffickers and recovered a minor girl belonging to Punjab in a raid in Jawaki area of Frontier Region, Kohat, on Wednesday, officials said.

They said that the political administration got information that some tribesmen had brought a woman and her child from Gujranwala and were keeping them in their house. They said that the two were allegedly bought for Rs150,000 from an active group of kidnappers of Punjab six months ago.

A party of FR police, led by tehsildar Bashir Khan, raided a house and arrested human traffickers, Khana Mir and Faisal, sons of Jan Afzal, and recovered the one and a half years old girl, Zainab from there. However, mother of the girl was still missing and the accused were under interrogation to find out her whereabouts.

They said that efforts were underway to locate relatives of the minor girl and inform them about her recovery.

Preliminary interrogations revealed that Khana Mir had sold the little girl to Faisal for Rs40,000. The officials said that the accused had sold the woman onwards to other criminals.

During the army operation in Dara Adamkhel in 1991 over a dozen girls were recovered from a hotel. Later, the hotel was blown up.

The victims had said that they did not see light of the day for several years.

After this the tribesmen were strictly asked not to indulge in heroin and hashish production and human trafficking. But it seems the business has not stopped and is still going on.

ARRESTED: The police arrested 13 Afghan nationals staying in Kohat without valid documents during a search operation the other day.

During a raid the Gumbat police arrested 13 illegal Afghan refugees who had no valid travel documents and registration for staying in Kohat.

They were sent to Kohat prison by the court of law.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd , 2014