ALPURI Militants have vacated several areas of Puran tehsil in Shangla district and returned three ambulances of a government hospital they had taken away a few days ago.

A local jirga, which had been negotiating with the militants, informed the district administration on Wednesday that the Taliban had left the tehsil.

The militants had sneaked into the area from Buner and Swat and set up checkpoints on three main roads leading to Puran.

Last week, security forces warned elders of Puran, Chakesar and Martung areas to expel the militants or face a military operation.

A jirga member told Dawn that the militants had vacated areas between Yakh Tanghi Top and Puran Dehri. He said the militants might have gone to Kala Dhaka, a semi-tribal area in the adjoining Mansehra district.

Curfew was relaxed from 11.30am to 5.30pm on Wednesday.

Shangla District Coordination Officer Altaf Hussain asked government employees to report for duty and warned that they could lose their jobs if they failed to do so. The DCO suspended an engineer and a plumber of the water supply department for being absent from work.