ByIncident took place during anti-encroachment drive at Fashion Street; hawkers protested, mahandled her.An anti-encroachment drive by the BMC at Fashion Street ran into trouble on Thursday after a woman civic official was allegedly roughed up by a vendor.In her complaint to the Azad Maidan police, Nuthan Jadhav, senior inspector (encroachment removal cell) said that a man pulled her out of the spot where her team was carrying out a demolition drive.“The person even threatened me with dire consequences for conducting the drive,” Jadhav told Mumbai Mirror. The police have registered a case against the vendor, who could not be immediately identified, for stopping a government official from discharging her duty.As per BMC records, there are 398 licensed shops on fashion street, popular for cheap copycats of international apparel brands. There were allegations that many of them had extended the stalls and obstructing pedestrian movement.“The civic staff had removed illegal extensions at over 50 shops. But, the drive had to be halted due to the alleged misbehaviour with our senior official,” said Prajakta Salaskar, inspector (encroachment removal cell) of BMC.Thursday’s drive was a part of the action initiated by BMC chief Ajoy Mehta to free up space by removing encroachment.On their part, the vendors, who didn’t wish to come on record, accused the officials from A-ward of harassing them for the past months. “They come to our shops from the ground behind and steal our goods. At times, they seize our merchandise and release the items without issuing proper receipts. They’re extremely corrupt.”After the incident, the vendors shut down their shops in protest. “We chain stools and some other belongings to the stalls. This morning, found the locks and chain broken and our belongings missing,” said a stall owner. One of them apparently approached the Azad Maidan police with a counter complaint.By 5 pm, the protesters were a divided lot, after some of them re-opened their shops. “We are poor people. We cannot afford to keep our businesses shut for long hours,” said a vendor.