NAWABSHAH, Oct 30: Police on Tuesday booked an MPA, a nazim of a council and more than 45 other people after a dispute erupted between two groups of transporters over the ownership of a plot, which led to an attack by one group on the offices of its rival group.

Armed people belonging to a group of transporters reportedly led by an MPA attacked the office of an air conditioned coach, owned by Jamalis on Masjid Road and tried to occupy it forcibly, said the police, adding that they sealed all the offices of coach services till the dispute was settled between the two groups.

Salar Khan Chandio, manager of the air conditioned coach service owned by Zafar Ali Jamali, lodged an FIR against MPA Chaudhry Tariq Masood Arain, his brothers Javed Iqbal Arain (nazim of union council No6), Pervez Arain, Munawar Arain, his father Chaudhry Manzoor Arain, Khaliq Dad Brohi, Jameel Khokhar, Zahoor, Fateh Mari, Faiz Brohi, Shafiq Qureshi, Liaquat Arain, Malik Ameer, Mansoor Qureshi and 30 unknown persons.

He said that he and his colleagues Yousuf and Tariq were sitting in the coach office when MPA Chaudhry Tariq Masood carrying a Kalashnikov, Javed Iqbal a repeater and the rest armed with clubs and sticks came there in a land cruiser.

After some time, joined by dozens of other people who came in two tractor-trolleys, they attacked their office and ransacked it. Jameel Khokhar and Malik Ameer snatched Rs20,000 and mobile phone from him, beat them up and threatened to kill them.

Police had on Monday sealed the offices of coach after cordoning off the Masjid Road area and parking mobile vans on the road immediately after the dispute.

Later, the transporters belonging to Arain group blocked the entire Masjid Road from all sides by parking coaches in protest against police action.

DPO Dr. Ghulam Sarwar Jamali said that Chaudhry Tariq wanted to forcibly occupy the office of another coach service. Police had sealed all the offices till the settlement of dispute, he said.

Malik Ameer, manager of Chaudhry Tariq Masood Arain, said that they had rented plots Nos: 71, 72 and 73 on the Masjid Road under an agreement with Mohammed Yousuf Brohi, the plots’ owner and were paying rent for past two years.

He accused the DPO of favouring the other group because he, too, belonged to Jamali tribe.