The protesters, led by the owners of the two shops, gathered at Hall Road Chowk on McLeod Road around 11am and blocked the traffic by littering the passage with tyres. They torched the tyres and shouted slogans against the police, blaming them for poor patrolling in city’s most frequented commercial centre.
Hardly three months back, armed men had taken away cash and cell phones from six shops in the same plaza, owners of the affected shops told Dawn.
Muhammad Fiaz of Fiaz Electronics said eight robbers, riding a pick-up, reached the four-storey Qadri Chamber around 3am (Tuesday) and held up two watchmen Dawood and Baloch. Six of them entered the shop and bagged cell phones, calling cards and SIMs worth Rs1 million from three counters and fled while kidnapping the watchmen.
They dragged the watchmen out near the railway station and fled, said Fiaz who added that the watchmen informed Rescue 15 police which reached the spot after an hour. The officials just picked the broken locks and left the spot after inquiring from the victims (watchmen) which way the robbers had fled to.
Khwaja Shahid, an employee of Mobiles Town, said some robbers looted cell phones and accessories worth Rs363,000 and Rs415,000 in cash from the shop owned by Nasir Jamshaid. He said the robbers committed the crime during loadshedding.
He said this was the fifth robbery at their shop during the last nine years, but the police had failed to trace the culprits in even a single case.
A visit to the place revealed that not a single closed-circuit television had been installed in any of the affected shops or in the plaza by the association. The Lahore police repeatedly claim that they have got installed security cameras in various plazas of Hall Road while the traders say the facility has been provided to few shops.
It was learnt that the watchmen had only clubs; one of them said he would possess a gun in the past which was taken from him.
GRIDLOCK: The three-hour protest caused a gridlock on the road and adjoining arteries. A police contingent, led by the Civil Lines division SP, reached the spot but failed to placate the traders who were joined by the Anjuman-i-Tajran Electronics (Hall Road & Link Mcleod Road) office-bearers.
PANIC: A bomb hoax created panic among the motorists. “I was on way to my children’s school at Regal Chowk when I got stuck in the traffic mess on Mcleod Road and panicked after hearing rumour about a bomb blast,” Arshad Farhan of Gowalmandi said.
He said he later came to know that a protest was taking place against a robbery incident.
CASE: The Qila Gujjar Singh police registered two separate cases under section 395 of the Pakistan Penal Code. Civil Lines division acting SP Dr Hyder Ashraf said the police were interrogating the two watchmen who had given contradictory statements.
“They first said robbers had tied them and later claimed that the armed men took them along,” the SP said, adding that the police reached the spot within response time of the first call.