KOHAT, Jan 2: Police seized a large quantity of weapons and drugs following an encounter with smugglers near the Darwezi area on Sunday night, officials said.

Police officials set up a checkpoint near Darwezi after receiving information that some smugglers would try to smuggle a huge quantity of arms and ammunition from Dara Adam Khel in the frontier region of Kohat to Punjab and Sindh.

The smugglers were intercepted en route and asked to surrender but they opened fire on the police party.

The police retaliated and after an hour-long exchange of firing the smugglers managed to flee, leaving behind arms, ammunition and drugs.

The seizure included 10 Kalashnikovs, five machine guns, three Kalakovs, 35 pen pistols, 14 rifles, four 30 bore pistols, 1,500 cartridges and 20 kilograms of hashish.

Police have registered a case against the unidentified smugglers and started an investigation.

STUDENTS’ DEMAND: Students of the Darra Adam Khel Government College, the frontier region of Kohat, have threatened to continue boycotting classes if no action was taken against the chief of Khasadar force who, they claimed, had ordered opening fire on students when they were staging a protest against load-shedding.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, the president of the students union, Atif Afridi, warned that if the accused official was not removed from his post they would be free to avenge their insult under tribal norms.

They said that had blocked the Indus Highway on Dec 17 in protest against the load-shedding, and added the subedar major of khasadars, Iran Gul, arrived there and instead of negotiating with them ordered firing on them.

Later, the tehsildar, Muntazir Khan and chief of the Darra Qaumi Tehrik, Syed Wazir, had assured them that the official concerned would be removed from his post.

They lamented that after the incident the said official established an illegal check post inside the college premises which turns into a bar at night.