Penang police have deployed 120 policemen to track down the seven detainees who escaped after blinding their police escorts with chilli powder and hijacking the police van taking them to the Butterworth courts complex yesterday.

azlan State chief police officer Abdul Rahim Hanafi said today personnel from the General Operations Force and the Bukit Aman police air unit were also helping in the search.

"We believe the detainees are still in the Tasek Gelugor area. Police have set up roadblocks there," he told reporters after a visit to SJKC Li Tek A in Georgetown.

He advised members of the public to contact any police station if they came across anyone behaving in a suspicious manner, and warned that the detainees were dangerous and aggressive.

He also said that police were trying to determine how the detainees got hold of the chilli powder which they hurled at their police escorts before fleeing.

The incident happened at about 9am yesterday when the police were taking nine detainees from the Penang Prison to the Butterworth courts complex in a police van.

Some of the detainees pretended to quarrel among themselves, forcing the policemen to stop the van at the outer ring road to investigate.

The detainees then blinded the policemen with the chilli powder and beat them up before hijacking the van.

Police arrested two detainees who had remained in the van which was found abandoned in Kampung Padang Chempedak in Tasek Gelugor near Georgetown.

- Bernama