KARACHI, July 10: Police launched a crackdown on elements involved in trading of stolen mobile phones, and picked up 16 shopkeepers from the Saddar Electronics Market besides seizing 250 unclaimed cellphones from their possession on Sunday.

Saddar Town Police Officer Sanaullah Abbasi said the police had picked up the shopkeepers who had been violating the condition of documenting the sale and purchase of used cellphones.

All of the seized cellphones were unclaimed and the police suspected them to be stolen, Mr Abbasi said, adding that the shopkeepers had failed to produce proof of ownership of the mobile phones recovered from them.

The police put those picked up behind bars at the Preedy police station.

He said the IMEI numbers of all cellphones were noted down.

He has asked people to contact the police or the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee to know if their phones were among those recovered.

He said the crackdown on crimes would continue and the police would never allow the trading of stolen cellphones.

He asked shopkeepers to honour the agreement reached between the police and the Karachi Electronics Dealers Association (KEDA) that the sale and purchase of used mobile phones would be documented, to avoid any subsequent hassle.

The SHO Preedy, Shahrukh, said one of the 250 seized phones turned out to have been snatched from Abdul Khalid in Gulshan-i-Iqbal. However, there was no record of sale or purchase of the remaining 249 cellphones, added.

Meanwhile, the Information Secretary of KEDA, Shahid Ali Sehr, claimed that 11 shopkeepers and 11 customers had been picked up by the police during a raid made at around noon. He said that 220 cellphones were seized from them and none of them had turned out to be stolen. He said the police had been harassing shopkeepers and customers on the pretext of recovering stolen phones.