FAISALABAD, Dec 5: Kotwali police have registered a case against 10 Rescue-15 officials and three traders on charges of disturbing law and order at a local commercial centre.

Sources said a Rescue-15 team had gone to the local Anarkali Bazaar on being informed that two groups of traders were quarrelling over some financial dispute. The policemen, instead of resolving the matter, started beating up the shopkeepers. A guard of the market, Abdul Sattar, was also beaten up by the policemen and deprived of his rifle when he tried to intervene. The Rescue-15 rounded up the guard and three shopkeepers and locked them up at the Kotwali Police Station.

The shopkeepers of Anarkali Bazaar and its adjoining markets became infuriated when they were informed that some of their fellow shopkeepers had been tortured by the police and arrested. They closed their shops in protest and held a demonstration in front of the Kotwali Police Station.

In the meantime, the DSP for Civil Lines rushed to the place and held negotiations with the traders who were demanding registration of cases against the policemen for torturing the traders without any justification.

The negotiations led to release of all the arrested shopkeepers and registration of cases against constables Mohammad Imran, Shahid Hanif, Shakeel Ahmed, Zahid Bashir, Sarfraz Ahmed, Shah Mohammad, Tauqeer Akhter, Mohammad Afzal, Maqsood Ahmed and Naeem Abbas and shopkeepers Abdul Razaq, Qavi Ahmed and Gulzar Ahmed on the complaint of Anarkali Bazaar Traders Union secretary-general Tariq Mehmood. However, nobody was arrested.

Meanwhile, various traders’ bodies of the city have demanded that a senior police officer should investigate the matter and fix responsibility for the incident.