SUKKUR, Dec 9: A number of people, including some policemen, were injured during an hours-long battle between A-Section police personnel and traders of Sukkur Cloth Market on Sunday when police tried to pick up a trader in connection with investigation into a financial scam.
Traders having their businesses in the wholesale cloth market — comprising over 300 shops — pulled down shutters in protest against the raid on a shop to arrest Shakeel Memon, a shopkeeper whose relative, Shakir Memon, had been arrested and later released on bail in an investment scam involving Rs260 million several months ago.
According to the protesting traders, two officials, one of them in plain clothes, belonging to the A-Section police station tried to whisk away Shakeel Memon without showing him an arrest warrant. Many shopkeepers resisted the policemen’s attempt arguing that the market fell within the remit of the B-Section police and that there were no arrest warrants with the policemen. However, the two policemen brandished their guns and insisted on taking Shakeel Memon to the A-Section police station in a mobile van. Their action provoked traders who physically tried to rescue the suspect. A fistfight ensued and one of the two policemen, Constable Ladha Khan, got his leg fractured. He was shifted to the Civil Hospital Sukkur where he was admitted for, what doctors said, a minor surgery.
Later, a police contingent led by ASP City Abdul Raheem Sheerazi arrived at the scene but faced wrath of angry traders, who pelted the police party with stones. The police lobbed teargas shells to disperse the mob. Reinforcement was called in from the Sukkur Police Line to bring the situation under control. An unspecified number of people, including some policemen, sustained injuries during the violence. Several women and children also fainted in the heavy teargas shelling.
Hundreds of people, mainly shopkeepers from many localities around the cloth market, gathered at the scene and staged a noisy demonstration against the police action.
Office-bearers of various trade unions announced a shutterdown till the removal of the SHOs of the A-Section and B-Section police stations, and demanded an apology by the police for misbehaving with traders and unnecessarily using force without taking the trader community and the police high-ups into confidence on the issue involving an individual.
ASP Sheerazi, however, said that police would not come under traders’ pressure, adding that those involved in the attack on policemen would be arrested.
Meanwhile, leaders of local traders Haji Haroon, Haji Mateen Bandhani, Haji Sabir and Badar Rafique led by MPA Dr Nasrullah Baloch approached Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khursheed Shah at the Sukkur Airport, where he had arrived to fly to Karachi, and apprised him of the whole affair. ASP Sheerazi was also present there.
The minister asked MPA Baloch to prepare a complete report and submit it to him. Mr Baloch was also directed to try to settle the police-traders row amicably.