LAHORE, Oct 11: A shopkeeper and a customer were arrested on Hall Road on Saturday following a police crackdown there against the sale of “objectionable material,” according to eye-witnesses and police.

Police continued to patrol the city’s largest electronics market following threats by unknown persons against the sale of “objectionable” material.

Muhammad Shabbi Labbah, president of the traders union, showed this reporter an unsigned letter asking all traders on the Hall Road and its surrounding plazas to “clean up” their act by Oct 20 or be ready to face dire consequences. The letter was posted at the Lahore GPO.

Labbah claimed he also received similar threats on his phone.

“Business has seen a sharp down-turn. Of course customers don’t want to be the target when there is such a threat,” he said.

Union activists took a round of the market, urging traders to dispose of pornographic material if they had any.

On Friday, in an apparent effort to show they had ‘cleaned up their act’, market traders set fire to ‘objectionable’ CDs and DVDs.

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