Manama: Bahrain's foreign minister has added his voice to the chorus of condemnations of an attack on a supermarket.
"There is no difference between those who block roads and target innocent people with Molotov cocktails and those who attack private properties to exact genralised revenge. Under the law, all of them are violations," Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa wrote on his Twitter account.
The minister was reacting to news that some people have repeatedly attacked a chain of supermarkets and looted them, claiming that they were taking revenge on its owner.
The latest attack, on Tuesday, sparked an outcry across the segments of the society amid claims that some security men in the area did nothing to prevent it.
Religious scholars used their sermons to call for calm and for self-restraint and to condemn acts of sabotage against private property.
On Friday, Major General Tareq Al Hassan, Chief of Public Security, said that several civilians and security personnel had been arrested following an investigation launched by the interior ministry into "the incident of vandalism of a supermarket in the Central Governorate on April 10."
"If there is evidence that the police had acted improperly, disciplinary action will be taken and, if necessary, criminal charges will be filed," he said, adding that the police were working closely with the shop owner to bring the vandals to justice.
Al Hassan said that CCTV footage at the supermarket was being used in the full investigation into the incident to determine if there was police misconduct.
