Earlier on Sunday, Some 384 prisoners including militants escaped early Sunday from bannu jail after an attack by insurgents armed with guns, grenades and rockets, officials said.

More than 150 heavily-armed militants stormed the central prison outside the restive northwestern town of Bannu.

Later on, “Fifty-three prisoners out of the total 384, who had escaped the jail, have returned voluntarily while 11 others were arrested,” senior Bannu police official Iftikhar Khan told AFP.

A woman prisoner was one of those who surrendered.

According to the report forwarded to the interior ministry, the escaped convicts included 21 prisoners on death row. Moreover, five female prisoners also managed to escape during the incident.

(According to an AFP report, 34 condemned prisoners had escaped the prison.)

Furthermore, the report claims that the police reached the crime scene after a delay of about two hours.

Of the total 384 escaped convicts, 269 were prisoners were serving their sentences, while 89 were still under investigation.

Around 100 to 150 militants had stormed the Bannu central prison Saturday midnight and freed 384 prisoners, among them a man sentenced to death for trying to assassinate former president Pervez Musharraf.

The militants had arrived on pick-ups at about 1.30am and attacked the prison housing over 900 inmates after blowing up the main gates with rocket-propelled grenades.

The incident was described as the biggest jail-break in the country’s history.

Added: AFP