The traders claim they do not steal power directly: they do not tap electricity from overhead wires. But they also admit that some of them use more electricity than they are entitled to, only after greasing official palms.

Last week, DVB officials made four attempts to enter the market complex. Unlike in the adjoining jhuggi clusters, they succeeded only once in Central Market on Monday, when they raided seven shops and registered cases against three traders. And that was ``sufficient provocation for the infuriated traders'' to close down the market on Tuesday. The traders say they also realised that money wasn't going to thwart the DVB men from carrying out the raids this time around, ``something else had to be done''.

On Thursday, when the DVB men attempted another raid, they were mobbed by hundreds of traders. Local MLA Tarvinder Singh Marwah also reached the spot to lend support. The raiders quietly left the place; the local policemen accompanying them stood watching. And ditto next day. ``There will be no more raids now. I have spoken to the Power Minister and the Chief Secretary in this regard,'' says Marwah.

So on Thursday, after they were turned out, the hapless DVB men went to the Lajpat Nagar Police Station and tried to lodge a complaint regarding obstruction of duty. Instead, the policemen there ``advised negotiation and offered arbitration''. The negotiations are still on.

``But what can we negotiate with people who are stealing power,'' says a senior DVB official posted with the south zone. ``They are holding the government to ransom, though they are in the wrong''.

MLA Marwah, however, says: ``I intervened because the traders are in my constituency. I admit that some of them are stealing power. But there is no need to register FIRs against them. The DVB could have let them off with fines''.

There are over 2,000 shops in the market. ``Around 5 per cent are probably stealing power,'' admits Ashok Thakur, president of the Lajpat Nagar Market Traders' Union. ``But all of us are being victimised in the name of power thefts''.

Thakur, who owns Seema shoes, says the traders took to protesting because the DVB ``were arbitrarily imposing fines''. He adds: ``The DVB did not conduct a survey before carrying out the raids. It was a pick and choose game, targeting those traders who had refused to pay a bribe to local DVB officials on some occasion''.

Says Kishen Kumar, owner of Hi-Style, a garment shop which is one of the only seven shops raided so far: ``I had refused to pay money to a DVB engineer some time ago, now they have got back by asking me to pay Rs 1.67 lakh as outstanding arrears.'' Kumar says the DVB team came to his shop and randomly calculated the electricity load from the number of points inside, though at any given time all the lights or fans are not switched on. ``Somehow they concluded that my meter was tampered,'' he adds.

But local DVB officials say the traders have a strong union and good contacts, political and apolitical. ``A raid does not automatically mean we are going to file a case or disconnect power supply. If we find that a particular consumer is abiding by all the rules, there is no question of taking action. But first we must be allowed to do our job''.

About the DVB's allegation that the local police are not helping them gain access to Central Market, DCP (south) P.K. Srivastava says: ``We have registered three cases in connection with power thefts in Central Market. Whenever the DVB have requested for policemen during the raids, we have obliged. We will provide whatever assistance we can''.