Darra Adam Khel
Darra Adam Khel(Khyber Pakhtunkhwa)
Darra Adam Khel
(Urdu/Pashto:
درہ آدم خیل) is a town in the
Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan,
located between Peshawar
and Kohat,
very close to the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas. It is inhabited by
Pashtuns
of the Afridi
clan, the Adam Khel. The town consists of one main street
lined with shops, with some alleys and side streets containing
workshops. Darra Adam Khel is devoted entirely to the production of
ordnance.
Economy
Located in between Kohat and Peshawar, a wide
variety of firearms are produced in the town, from anti-aircraft
guns to pen-guns. Weapons are handmade by individual craftsmen using
traditional manufacturing techniques, usually handed down
father-to-son. The quality of the guns is generally high and
craftsman are able to produce replicas
of almost any gun. Guns are regularly tested by test-firing into the
air.Darra is controlled by the local tribesmen.Darra Adam Khel is an
unkempt village of two story wood and adobe buildings in the sand
stone hills near the Kohat Frontier region. It is the gun factory of
the Tribal Areas, located around 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of
Peshawar on the road to Kohat. The drive takes around forty minutes.
Darra (Adam Khel denotes a clan of the Afridi Tribe) is inside
Pakistan but beyond Pakistani law—and very nearly beyond
comprehension. Most of the people here seem to make or sell just one
thing, i.e., guns, while the second largest business of the
inhabitants is transport.
In the arcades off the main road are workshops.
Hundreds of closet-sized rooms where men and boys make working copies
of the entire world's guns with nothing more than hand tools and a
small drill press. The tools are astonishingly primitive, yet the
forges turn out accurate reproduction of every conceivable sort of
weapon, from pen pistols and hand-grenades to automatic rifles and
anti-aircraft guns. The copies are so painstakingly reproduced that
even the serial number of the original is carried over. A Darra
gunsmith, given a rifle he hasn't seen before, can duplicate it in
around ten days.Once the first copy is made, each additional copy
takes two or three days due to the templates created. Handguns, being
more complex, take a little longer.
In Darra, almost three-fourths of the people are
in the gun trade. Pen pistols and walking stick guns are popular
here, but heavier ordnance such as anti-aircraft guns is also
manufactured. Around 400-700 guns are made in Darra each day and the
number is rising with the adoption of more tools. These guns are more
than enough for the Pashtuns themselves. Many guns find their way to
and from Afghanistan. In the 1980s, heroin was shut down in the
markets after consultation with the tribal elders due to foreign
pressure, but guns, known as the ornaments of a Pashtun, could not be
eliminated. Manufacturing of heavy ammunition, however, has been
closed down.
Travel by foreigners to Darra is forbidden.
Travelers can drive by bus or car through Darra without a permit
provided they do not stop because that will invite trouble. If
tourists/foreigners buy guns, the shopkeepers mostly tip off the
customs and the police about the trade. As a result, buyers are
nabbed and the guns are either confiscated or released by giving a
bribe.
The Darra arms trade first fired up in 1897. This
arms trade has won a fame for the Adam
Khel Afridis who are the major inhabitants of
the town.
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