The rice shops owners and workers of Chittagong city’s Pahartoli Sunday shut down their shops and blocked roads for an hour, protesting extortion by one Mahbubur Rahman Iqbal.
The agitated shop owners, however, withdrew their blockade after police arrested Towhidur Rahman, brother of Iqbal.
Azizur Rahman, officer-in-charge (OC) of Pahartoli police station, told Dhaka Tribune that Mahbubur Rahman Iqbal alias “Dail” Iqbal demanded extortion from a rice shop owner on Saturday night.
As the shop owner declined to give money, Iqbal confined one of his workers when he was unloading the sacks of rice from a truck on Sunday morning, the OC said.
Hearing the news, several hundreds of rice shop owners and workers closed their shop from 9:30am to 10:30am and blocked the roads of Pahartoli, protesting the incident and demanding immediate arrest of Iqbal.
On receiving information, police rushed to the spot and arrested Towhidur in this connection, added the OC.
Meanwhile, Iqbal released the worker while police was conducting drives to nab him, the OC added.
A case was lodged with Double Mooring police station in this regard.
