SARGODHA, June 8: An alleged gang of timber thieves held hostage Forest Department officials and tortured them when they raided a house in Raitri village, Jandanwala in Bhakkar, to seize stolen timber on Thursday. While the Forest officials were also nominated in a first information report (FIR) for illegally entering the house and breaching the privacy of the inmates.

On a tip-off, Forest Department officials under the supervision of Range Forest Officer Muhammad Suhail Zaffar, raided a house in Raitri and found a large quantity of wood stolen from the forest. The inmates allegedly tortured the employees and held them hostage for several hours.

Even though the employees got an FIR registered against 10 people, the accused also succeeded in getting lodged an FIR against the raiding employees. The accused nominated in the FIR were: Sher Ali, Muhammad Khan, Abdul Rehman, Ahmad Khan, Imran, Mehr Khan, Bilo, Ijaz, Rana Imran and Muhammad Khan Masti Khel. Forest Department employees nominated in the counter-FIR were: Muhammad Iqbal, Sajjad Ali and Fazal Elahi. Forest officials told Dawn through telephone the accused were also nominated in another FIR registered against them at Jandanwala Police Station.

No arrests from either side were reported and police refused to tell about developments in the case. The tehsil nazim and the union council nazim accused the employees of harassing the poor people on the pretext of wood theft, adding they themselves were involved in wood theft.