THATTA: An enraged trader and his henchmen dragged a poor labourer out of his thatched hut, forced him to walk into a busy bazaar in Sujawal town as he kept beating him all the way, then tied him half naked with an electric pole without fear of law and public rage on Wednesday morning.

A huge crowd of passersby watched the brutal episode unfold before them helplessly as they were told the labourer, Liaquat Narejo, owed Rs45,000 to the influential trader, Ghulam Mohammad alias Guli Kanad and the poor man was being punished for defaulting on paying back the debt within time.

An eyewitness said the trader stripped the labourer half naked and forced him to climb up the electric pole before a huge crowd but after intervention of some sane citizens the poor man was allowed to dismount. However, the trader devised another way to hurt him, tying his hands with his tattered shirt behind the pole, he said.

After about half an hour into the humiliating episode, someone called Sujawal police after which a few policemen came there, untied the victim’s hands and took him to police station, without saying even a word to the arrogant trader and his henchmen, he said.

Sources in the police station said the trader and his henchmen reached the police station after some time and held closed-door talks with officials, who reportedly received bribe to let the trader and his men go, apparently on an assurance that the matter would be settled in a jirga to be convened after Eid.

Police did not even file a non-cognizable report or information about the insulting incident while members of civil society demanded thorough inquiry and punishment to the arrogant trader who brutalised and humiliated a poor man in public without any fear of law.

Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2021