MIANWALI, April 22: The police arrested an Afghan national at a check post near Pakistan Air Force (PAF) Base here on Friday and seized from him a pistol and two grenades.

The Afghan was travelling in an auto-rickshaw on PAF Road. The police intercepted the rickshaw at the check post established near the PAF Base's main gate, and frisked the passenger to find a pistol and two grenades concealed in the jacket he was wearing.

The police overpowered the man identified as Hukam Khan, a resident of Imam Sahib district in Afghanistan's Kunduz province and a holder of national identity card No 21439140051, and took him to a police station for interrogation.

Talking to Dawn, a police officer, who wished not to be named, ruled out that the Afghani man was a militant. He said Khan had been residing in Mianwali for the last four years and was a petty labourer.

He said Khan's father was murdered over an enmity sometimes ago and he started keeping himself armed for his personal safety.

The policeman said Khan had recently shifted his residence from Noorpura Mohallah to a locality on Talagang Road and was going to his new abode on Friday but the rickshaw driver, perhaps unknowingly, took PAF Road that eventually landed the passenger in trouble.

City DSP Mohammad Akbar Khan told Dawn the suspect had been shifted to a place that could not be disclosed for security reasons where the police and other law-enforcement agencies would interrogate him to confirm whether he was simply a labourer or a militant indeed.

The DSP said three more Afghan nationals had been taken into custody on Khan's disclosure. However, interrogation would help authorities ascertain the factual position, he added.

Around 20,000 Afghan nationals are living in a refugee camp near Kot Chandna locality of this district and most of them earn their livelihood by working in different parts of the district on daily wages.

The local police are on a high alert due to terrorist attacks, especially on police and military installations.