Police detain 20 real estate agents as they break up Khayaban-e-Shaheen protest

Estate agents say their colleague was swindled from his rightful commission.

KARACHI: Twenty people were arrested on Thursday night when members of the Association of Defence and Clifton Real Estate Agents (DCREA) staged a sit-in at Khyaban-e-Shaheen in Phase 6, to protest the what they called the usurpation of their colleague’s rightful commission.

A baton charge and aerial firing by the police managed to scatter between 200 and 250 protesters who had gathered.

"They were making noise and had started to become rowdy, they also blocked off a main road which is why we had to move them," said constable Saleem, adding that, "they were threatening people in a house along the main road."

The home that the constable mentioned was the same one which had been on the receiving end of the protests.

Muhammad Shafi Jakvani an ex-councillor of the DCREA and one of the protestors, had run to 14th and Khayaban-e-Nishat where he told The Express Tribune, "we didn't block the road as they had told us not too. When the firing started we had to run even though the road was not blocked at the time."

Jakvani says that the association is filled with business owners and does not like to start conflicts but the sit-in was necessary because a real estate agent was not receiving the money he was owed.

Jakvani says that a home was built on a property that a real estate agent was in charge of selling but the builder and the buyer made a deal cutting the agent out of ten lacs of his commission.

"If we don't stand up for this right now people will start eating up agents' rightful commission," said Jakvani.

Police seized over 15 motorcycles belonging to the brokers who were staging the sit-in because they had left their vehicles on the spot when they ran from the police.

There were unconfirmed reports of police brutality, and an injury from their firing.