LAHORE, Sept 9: Around three dozen men and women sustained injuries when police baton-charged them for disturbing public order in a bid to get application forms of a housing scheme.

Police said a majority of people who gathered outside the main office of the housing scheme near the Centre Point in Gulberg and a bank on Egerton Road were agents of a land mafia.

"We could hardly find a genuine buyer. The agents even put forward women to secure a maximum number of forms," a police officer said. A form bought for Rs500 was being resold for Rs15,000 to 25,000 on the spot, which made things worse, he added.

The police initially attempted to use more peaceful means to disperse the gathering of over 2,000 men and women outside the main office of the housing scheme but had to use harsher steps on failing to do so. Despite the baton-charge, no one was ready to give up an inch, the police said, adding that it seemed as if people had gone crazy.

People were not baton-charged outside a bank on the Egerton Road, where a similar scene was witnessed with the agents pushing and tearing at each other's clothes in a bid to get access to the bank window, the police said.

Different government agencies had already started issuing warnings to people to buy plots only in the approved housing schemes, anticipating a scam in the booming real estate business. Many housing schemes that mushroomed over the years were found defrauding people.

The nuisance created at Centre Point was because of the sale of application forms for a housing scheme. The agents would purchase most of the forms and circulate them within their own circles to inflate the rates, a real-estate agent said. He added that people would go after the forms madly even while knowing well that the plot would only be available in a draw.

The police kept beating up the buyers for around two hours, but to no avail. People did not stop trying to get as many forms as they could despite getting injured, the police said.

The traffic at the Centre Point and adjacent roads remained blocked for around five hours, and the traffic police kept on diverting vehicles to other roads. Some of the injured people were taken to nearby hospitals where most of them were discharged after first-aid and a few with serious injuries admitted.