RAHIM YAR KHAN, Aug 1: Fruit and vegetable sellers on Wednesday staged a demonstration to protest against torching of a vendor’s cart by two TMA employees, allegedly for not greasing the palm of a land officer.

Reports said two TMA employees Qazi Fayyaz and Jam Mushtaq went to a fruit seller, Ghulam Mustafa, in Railway Road vegetable market and demanded the monthly bribe. As Ghulam Mustafa sought three more days for arranging the bribe, the TMA men got infuriated and set his cart to fire.

After the incident, fruit and vegetable sellers of the market gathered on Railway Road and chanted slogans against tehsil nazim, land officer and TMA employees.

They told Dawn that the land officer, Sarwar, demanded bribe from every shopkeeper and cart owner doing business in the area.

Ghulam Mustafa alleged the land officer had demanded Rs500 from him which he could not arrange. To punish him for the delay in payment of bribe, he sent the two men who torched his cart, he added.

When contacted, Tehsil Nazim Mian Ijaz Aamir claimed that Ghulam Mustafa was an encroacher and he himself burnt his cart to implicate TMA employees in a false case. He said the district police officer had ordered city SHO to investigate the matter.