PESHAWAR, Aug 25: Although the operation clean-up against criminals in Bara, Khyber Agency, entered third day, the political authorities have so far been unable to arrest any big fish involved in the heinous crimes.

Area residents accused the political authorities of providing safe passage to known criminals to walk away calmly. The gambling dens are operating as usual under the very nose of authorities, they alleged.

The Khyber Rifles, a wing of Frontier Corps; Khasadar  forces, a tribal police and Peshawar police have been jointly conducting the operation clean-up against the hired assassins,  kidnapping- for-ransom, carjackers and absconders since Friday.

A resident, who on condition of anonymity, told Dawn that  the law enforcement agencies, positioned everywhere in the Bara,  had demolished 70 houses, including 40 mud houses of Afghan refugees. A prominent cloth merchant, Manan Kochi’s house has also been razed to ground.

He said Mr Manan was an Afghan, who settled down here in  1972 and was running a cloth market in Nowshera. The political authorities demolished his expensive mansion because he refused to pay  them extortion money, he added.