SAHIWAL, June 2: A scuffle erupted between shopkeepers and Jaranwala police personnel when they raided two shops of cellular phone sets here on Sunday to arrest their owners for their alleged involvement in a robbery.

The shopkeepers took four members of the raiding team hostage for around 30 minutes after thrashing them and they were released after the intervention of local police. The owners of the raided shops claim that the Jaranwala police had exonerated them in the same robbery case just a week ago.

Around six policemen of the Jaranwala police came on two motorcars and raided Brothers Mobiles and Mahboob Mobiles in Liaquat Chowk here on Monday afternoon and tried to arrest their owners on a tip-off by an alleged robber that the shopkeepers were involved in purchasing snatched mobile phone sets from him.

The alleged robber also identified the owners of these shops, Sahikh Imran and Mahboob Ahmed, on which the raiding police team overpowered both of them. When the policemen were dragging the shopkeepers to their cars, they resisted and raised hue and cry on which owners of nearby shops also gathered there. Imran Sahikh informed the gathering that the Jaranwala police had exonerated them in the same robbery case just a week ago.

This utterance persuaded the shopkeepers to overpower the policemen and they were severely thrashed by the mob before being taken hostage for around half of an hour. The shopkeepers also resorted to pelting stones on policemen’s cars on which two of them fled on one of the vehicles.

On information, the Sahiwal police rushed to the scene. However, they were able to get their ‘guest’ colleagues liberated only after brief negotiations with the shopkeepers.

City DSP Rao Dilshad told Dawn that the incident happened only because the local police was not informed and taken into confidence by the Jaranwala police beforehand.

"This is not a normal practice. The local police are usually informed before launching any such raids in other districts," he added.

Shaikh Imran and Mahboob Ahmed told Dawn that they went to Jaranwala to clear their position in the said robbery case and the police had exonerated them, so there was no justification of any subsequent raids against them.