MANDI BAHAUDDIN, Feb 21: An enraged mob comprising over 300 villagers made hostage a special judicial magistrate and an anti-corruption inspector along with three constables for several hours to resist the arrest of a revenue patwari , official sources said on Monday.

The sources said that on an application filed by Umar Hayat Gondal of Anayat Mohalla, District and Sessions Judge Ghulam Hussain Awan ordered a raiding party headed by SJM Mehboob Alam to recover the alleged bribe money from a patwari, Fateh Muhammad.

The party comprising Anti-corruption Inspector Muhammad Ashraf Marth and constables Abid Hussain, Hamid Mehmood and Muhammad Hanif raided the patwari's office, and caught the said official red-handed while receiving Rs8,000 from the complainant.

Meanwhile, another revenue patwari, Javed Iqbal, gathered around 350 local villagers, who besieged the raiding party, and forced them to let Fateh Muhammad go. On the intervention of the local Nazim and some other influential people of the area, the mob agreed to let the raiding party go after several hours.

Later, anti-corruption police arrested the accused patwari and got his three-day physical remand from a court on Monday. Some officials of the anti-corruption police revealed that the accused had allegedly received Rs137,000 as bribe from the complainant so far for mutation of agricultural land.