MITHI: In what appeared to be a very unusual episode of its kind, six members of a law-enforcement agency were briefly taken into custody by police on Tuesday after they picked up a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) activist and two other persons in Chelhar town, blindfolded them and tried to whisk them away.

According to senior police officials, it seemed to be a case of mistaken identity.

The suspects, PPP activist Ali Khan Hajam, Sabhoj Samejo and Nanji Mal Maharaj, were picked up by six men in civvies in a pre-dawn “action” carried out at a section of the Mithi-Mirpurkhas road on the night intervening Monday and Tuesday.

According to the suspects, the security personnel caught hold of them and blindfolded them before forcing them into two cars. They told local reporters on Tuesday that a police team intercepted the cars at the entry/exit point of Thar near Naukot town and set them free.

“The police team escorted us, the [personnel] and the cars to the Naukot police station, where the [personnel] identified themselves as members of a law-enforcement agency. After verifying their claim by checking their official cards, the police let them off and also released their cars, none of which had a registration number plate,” the suspects said.

Thar SSP Ameer Saud Magsi told reporters that as soon as he received reports about the alleged detention of the three persons and public protest in Chelhar town over it, the police across the district was put on alert and got the town’s entry and exit points cordoned off.

Police teams from Thar and Mirpurkhas intercepted the two cars bearing no number plates on Mithi-Mirpurkhas road, he said.

The occupants were brought to the Naukot police station where six of the cars’ occupants turned out to be sleuths and were accordingly let off, the SSP said.

In the meantime, traders and shopkeepers pulled down shutters in Chelhar as soon as the reports about alleged detention of the political activist and two persons spread in the town. However, the situation returned to normal when they received the news about the suspects’ safe recovery.

Published in Dawn, November 22nd, 2017