All clear: Unfair trade off for anti-encroachment staff

Traders pelt TMA workers with stones for clearing their shops.

SARGODHA: Traders of Muslim Bazaar on Friday tortured the anti-encroachment staff, whereas the tehsil municipal administration (TMA) employment union observed a strike against the incident.

According to eyewitnesses, senior encroachment inspector Rashid Mehmood along with anti encroachment staff were conducting operational clean-up in Muslim Bazaar when shopkeepers including Shahzad Butt, Mirza Ishaq, Muhammad Akram, Sami Irfan, Jafar Ahsan, Ismail and others allegedly tortured them. “The shopkeepers began pelting them with rocks and bricks and seized some of the officers who were demolishing their shops and began beating them,” said a shopkeeper, Karamat Ahmad.

Inspector Mehr Ramzan, Malik Ejaz, Nasir Bloach and Mirza Akbar were injured and had to be shifted to the hospital after they sustained serious injuries. Reacting to the incident, all the branches of CBA union of the TMA locked up their offices and staged a protest against the behavior of the traders.

“We have just been doing our job and the traders had no right to resort to violence. We had issued several warnings to the shopkeepers but they didn’t take any of our warnings seriously,” said Mirza Akbar. The CBA union demanded the immediate arrest of the persons involved in the incident and have registered a case with local police.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2012.