KOHAT, Nov 16: The drive against hardened criminals hiding in the tribal areas is likely to fizzle out because of excessive interference to save criminals-cum-informers by political administration and secret agencies, officials say.

They said that interference at a time when the drive is still in its infancy could undermine the whole operation, officials said.

The drive against tribesmen involved in heinous crimes was launched on the directives of NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah last week.

He had directed local political authorities and the police to curb criminals and ensure the enforcement of Section 40 of the Frontier Crimes Regulations irrespective of the status and influence of criminals.

But political authorities are facing difficulties in arresting tribesmen involved in heinous crimes, who live in settled areas and run businesses in the tribal areas.

The DCO, Kohat, and administrator of the Frontier Region of Kohat, Arshad Majeed Mohmand, said that they had been trying to arrest 13 hardened criminals living in Peshawar for the past six months but the local police was not cooperating in this regard.

The police on the other hand accused the political authorities of not helping them in arresting known criminals hiding in tribal area. Both justified by saying that if they take action against influential criminals, they would create problems. They said that crime rate in a particular area rises whenever they arrested major criminals and consequently the officer in-charge was transferred.

Similarly, during the recent raids at the hideouts of kidnappers in Darra Adam Khel, a famous gun manufacturing town and a haven for criminals, which was ordered by the governor punitive action was taken against the accused tribe under the collective responsibility clause of the 40 FCR. The tribe after failure to surrender the most wanted kidnappers handed over two young sons of one of them.

When asked whether it was not inhuman to arrest minors, he replied that these two children were handed over by the tribe itself.

Moreover, he said: "We want to make the criminals realise how much agony and pain the relatives of their victims experience when they kidnap children for ransom."

But in cases involving arms and drugs smuggling, mostly senior intelligence officers get them released by terming them to be their informers. All 'big fish' were informers of the intelligence people who are never caught because of their influence, tribesmen alleged.

Intelligence agencies reward them by awarding them huge arms contracts with foreign companies, they added.

The DCO said that he had received a complaint from an embassy that an arms contractor belonging to Darra Adam Khel had got away with the down payment which was made in dollars to him and had refused to either deliver the consignment or repay the money.

The people think that in the present circumstances there were little chances of the success of the drive against kidnappers and other criminals and there was a need to first overhaul the system completely to get the desired results.