The bunkers are freshly dug. The trenches are long and winding.

Peshawar police station has a heavy armed guard

The Russian armoured vehicle at the entrance has four men clasping AK47s sitting astride it. This is no ordinary police station.

The Peshawar police are under pressure and the Mathani police station on the outskirts of the city underlines their mountainous challenges.

We arrive the morning after they have had their latest encounter with militants.

They tell me a large crowd surrounded the police station firing mortars and rockets. The fighting had gone on for two hours.

Defence tunnels at the station

Sub Inspector Mohammad Yaseen who is in charge at Mathani, has the air of a man who feels he's been given a task he simply cannot successfully complete.

Looking out over the bunkers and sandbagged police posts, he tells me ruefully: "This is a very dangerous place. They attack us regularly, about once a week and they always have heavy weapons."

The North West Frontier Province has a police force of 48,000. It is situated on the border with Afghanistan and has semi-autonomous tribal areas on three sides. The Taliban militants are knocking on the gates of the capital, Peshawar, indeed many would say they have already battered it down and are operating inside.

The Inspector General of NWFP Malik Naveed Khan who is based in Peshawar tells me: "I am fighting the most dangerous militancy in the world yet I have no helicopter capability.

"I have no bullet proof vehicle and only 10% of my force has bullet proof jackets so I don't wear one either. These are hard facts and the Western community has to wake up to this fact and help. They have to help us."

Vigilantes against the Taliban

He goes on to say when he first arrived to take up his post just over a year ago, only 20% of his men had AK47s. Up until then they were coping with single shot rifles - not much use against the heavily armed militants.

Just a short distance away from Mathani police station, there are more armed men. Only these men are neither police, nor Taliban militants but ordinary Peshawar residents who have turned vigilante.

Fahim says he has about 6,000 volunteers who have all taken up arms to keep the Taliban militants out of their neighbourhood.

He says he personally bought three hundred weapons to defend themselves.

"The police took away the two guns I had," he says, 'They are no help whatsoever. Instead they are making problems for us. We have our own vehicles, our own guns and our own bullets and we are defending ourselves.'

His men patrol the lanes and alleyways of Bazidkhel near Mothani on the outskirts of Peshawar - an area where the police fear going. He claims success saying the kidnappers and the robbers have been driven out by them. His men stand behind him holding rocket propelled grenades. They all have AK47s, some have grenades strapped to their chests. These men are better armed than the police.

The city where once the England cricketers toured has become a no-go area for foreigners and it appears, in places, for the police too. And now they have vigilantes in the mix.