Businessmen assaulted

ffee shops, lodges and grinding mills in and around Gweru, was dragged out of his supermarket near Consella and slapped several times by the crack unit that comprised mainly plain clothes policemen. Officers in the unit later hit the business tycoon with a metallic object on his forehead. He collapsed immediately after.
The scuffle began when Size refused to comply with an order to sell beef at $50,000 per kg. Before the visit by the crack unit, he was selling his beef at $120,000/kg. Size argued that it was impossible for him to sell his merchandise at a loss. He also refused to comply with an order to slash the price of tea leaves from $45,000 to $5,000. He argued that he would not be able to recoup the costs of purchasing his merchandise, at which point one of the officers dragged him out of the supermarket and began assaulting him accusing him of running MDC supermarkets.
Size sustained a deep gush on his forehead after the confrontation with the police. He was still in police custody late afternoon today.
A senior manager at OK supermarket in the Gweru City Centre as also allegedly assaulted. Supermarket shelves have also been emptied here. In the city centre, in Mkoba and Senga, shoppers were retuning home empty-handed after coming face to face with empty shelves in supermarkets since the adoption of Mugabe’s populist policy to slash price by half.
All commuters’ operators here withdrew all their kombis from the road, forcing thousands to walk to work or to town. The crack unit is forcing commuter operators to charge $15,000 as bus fare for a trip to town. The operators here say this is impossible because they are not getting cheap fuel. The result has been a deadlock. – Chief reporter