KOHAT, Aug 1: Local militants kidnapped five alleged criminals in different parts of Darra Adamkhel on Friday.

Hameed Khan, an alleged car-lifter, was kidnapped in the Zarghun Khel area. The other persons kidnapped included an alleged drug seller. The local Taliban had also kidnapped a tribal elder, Haya Khan, on Thursday night in the Akhorwal area.

The Taliban, according to eyewitnesses, have also started patrolling the Rawalpindi road in Togh, Bala, Bilitang and Ghurazai.

“They come early in the morning from some unknown place and start patrolling in the area in two pickups with green flags. Policemen disappear after seeing them,” claimed one of the eyewitnesses.

According to officials, last week’s bomb attack on police in which more than 10 policemen had been injured and a boy killed was also the handiwork of local militants.

RECOVERED: Police on Thursday afternoon recovered an engineer kidnapped in the Ustarzai area.Armed men had kidnapped a sub-engineer of the Fata communication and works department, Taj Mohammad, and another person, whose name could not be known, from a coaster coming from Hangu to Kohat near Ustarzai.

Officials had said it could be the reaction to the kidnapping of four employees of a bank in Kalaya, belonging to a particular sect, two days ago. Police recovered the sub-engineer from Kachai, a border town of Kohat, but the other man was reportedly shifted to the Orakzai Agency by the kidnappers.