KHYBER: The Khyber police claimed to have arrested a notorious and most wanted drug peddler during a raid in Wazir Dhand locality of Jamrud tehsilon Friday night.

They said Asad, a resident of Wazir Dhand, had long been wanted by the police in drug-related activities, and was considered as a main supplier of heroin to differentparts ofthe country.

Terming the arrest of Asad as a huge `progress` in their efforts to wipe out narcotics trade from Khyber, the police said the arrested man had been in hiding for long.

They also claimed to have seized four kilogrammes of heroin, and three kilogrammes each of ice and charas from the possession of the arrested man.

Though police claimed only the arrest of Asad, sources in Wazir Dhand market, which is close to Peshawar`s largest foreign goods market of Karkhano, told Dawn that police also arrested a number of small-time drug peddlers during their Friday night raid.

They also disputed police claim of Asad being absconding for a long time and insisted he had been `active` in his illegal business for quite some time, and had been regularly paying `monthly` to officials of different government departments to avoid arrest and keep hisbusiness going.

The sources said last year drug business was effectively controlled by the former Khyber police chief with the closure of nearly 900 illegal drug outlets, while most of the narcotics dealers had fled Wazir Dhand, which was then considered as one of the major sale points of various illegal drugs in Peshawar.

They said with the transfer of former police chief a few months back, the majority of these drug dealers resurfaced with almost 50 per cent of their closed outlets reopened and restarted sale of the contraband, especially ice drug and ecstasy pills, both popular among addicted youth.

The sources also said drug dealers also revived their previous system of issuing tokens to their buyers prior to secret supply of the required drug from their stores.