PESHAWAR, Sept 8: Several localities on the suburbs of Peshawar remained under curfew at least for six hours as law enforcement agencies conducted raids for recovery of the kidnapped vice-chancellor of Islamia College (Chartered University) on Wednesday.

The main Bara-Peshawar Road was closed near Sarband Canal and curfew was imposed in Sango, Sarband, Batathal, Achini Bala and Sheikhan where police and Frontier Constabulary personnel remained active to check suspected people.

A police source said that several hideouts in Khyber Agency had been raided for recovery of Vice-chancellor Ajmal Khan, who was kidnapped on Tuesday along with his driver when he was on way from his residence at Professors Colony in Peshawar to his office.

The source said that they had information that the vice-chancellor had been shifted to Khyber Agency. He said that some criminals and suspected militants had been arrested there but he avoided giving details.

The station house officer of Campus police station, Waqar Khan, told Dawn that they had arrested a suspect soon after the incident on Tuesday. History of the detained accused showed that he was militant and played vital role in the kidnapping case, he said.

“His cellular phone contains some code names and also shows his actual name as Abu Sana but he avoids telling names of his accomplices,” he said.

He said that their sources confirmed that the detained accused had brought three armed men to the area and they bundled the vice-chancellor in another motorcar. He added that work on the cellular phone data was going on.

He said the kidnappers had so far not responded in this regard.

The police, he said, were hopeful of getting important clues and investigation was under way in this regard.

He said that police had offered security to all the administrative officials of the university but they had refused.

He said that there were also report that the kidnapped educationist might have been kept somewhere in the settled area close to the tribal regions of Khyber and Mohmand but concrete information was yet to pour in.

On Wednesday, all the link roads were also closed for vehicles and pedestrians and people including women and children had to wait along the Bara Road when the convoy of Frontier Corps moved to Sandgo.

“We have been waiting since 6am due to closure of the road,” Ghulam Farooq of Gulbahar told Dawn and added that he was selling biscuits in the suburban villages and the two days ahead of Eidul Fitr were very important for his business but he got late. A physically challenged youth Nauroz of Shaikhan, riding his tricycle, said that he had come from Palosai at 7am to reach his home but stuck up. He could not decide to return or wait till end of the curfew, he said.

It was observed that as the curfew was relaxed, people with their baggage on shoulders, most heading for Eid to their villages started marching towards Bara side as most of the passenger buses had already left for Peshawar.