Jewellers also caused trouble to hundreds of commuters as they didn't let them travel the road ahead.
To make their demands heard by the government, more than 400 jewellers gathered on SG Highway near Karnavati club on Tuesday morning to block the highway. However, their Rasta Roko protest took an ugly turn, when some of them started damaging vehicles plying on the road. They also caused trouble to hundreds of commuters as they didn't let them travel the road ahead.
Police lathicharged the protestors and detained 12 agitating jewellers, including Rajendra Soni, Sanjay Patel, Bharat Soni, Chirag Shah, Jivan Shah, Bharat Soni, Arvind Prajapati, Pravin Patel, Shailesh Patel, Alpesh Patel, Nirav Shah, and Hasmukh Soni.
Search for the leader, who vanished from the spot after the lathicharge, continued after that. On Tuesday morning, after learning about the Rasta Roko protest, JM Bharwad, senior police inspector of Satellite police along with his staff rushed to SG Highway. On reaching the spot, the police got to know that the mob had blocked the traffic on both sides of the highway. Some of the jewellers had even blocked the service road near Shalby Hospital.
While Bharwad was trying to convince the jewellers to remove the blockade and clear the passage for the commuters, someone from the mob threw a bottle at him. A group of jewellers shouted slogans and tried to cordon the police. It is when the cops resorted to lathicharge and as a result, the mob started pelting stones on the vehicles.
According to the police, protestors broke windscreens of five vehicles including a bus, an auto and three cars, during the blockade. Officials also learnt that some of them even slapped a woman commuter on the road. After fleeing the spot, one group went in the direction of ISKCON temple, while the other escaped towards Shivranjani Crossroads.
Meanwhile the police got to know that the mob that had headed towards Shivranjani Crossroads might attack the Tanishq showroom, which was kept open on Tuesday. The jewellers at Tanishq were not part of the Rasta Roko protest.
After learning about the mob's intentions, police staff of Sarkhej, Anandnagar, and Satellite sent their teams to halt the jewellers.
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