THATTA, Dec 28: Nineteen villagers have been booked by the Sujawal police for allegedly attacking a police party and releasing a bank defaulter on Friday.

A police team headed by ASI Haji Iftikhar raided Belo village to arrest a defaulter of the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP), Ubedullah Samejo. Since Mr Ubedullah was trying to elude them they got hold of his son, Hussain, instead.

On seeing this, around 20 villagers equipped with bamboos and axes attacked the police party as a result of which two constables, Abdullah and Manzoor, were injured. They also succeeded in getting Mr Hussain released.

When this correspondent contacted the DSP, Sujawal, he said that the police had apprised the district and taluka Nazims to help sort out the issue and recover the bank’s dues.

An FIR has been registered against 19 villagers including Ubedullah Samejo, Hussain Samejo, Baboo Samejo, A. Bachayo, and Ahmed Suleman under section 324 and 354 PPC.

This is the second FIR against the same people who were involved in a similar incident two days ago.

It may be recalled that on Dec 26, a regional monitoring recovery team of the Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP) including its Sujawal Branch manager, Shamsher Awan, and two MCOs, Shaukat Qureshi and Sain Bux, accompanied by a police guard went to arrest Mr Ubedullah in Belo village. However, they were attacked by the defaulter, his two sons, and over a dozen villagers as a result of which they were injured.

An FIR was registered at the Sujawal Police station under section 147, 148, 149, 353, and 427 PPC on the same day.