BEIRUT: Seven people were wounded Thursday in a fight with sticks and razors at a vehicle inspection center in Hadath, east Beirut, a security source told The Daily Star.

They said the scuffle broke out around midday after members from Miqdad family were called in following a brawl between a middleman and an employee at the center.

The broker, identified as Mohammad Ali Khatoun, had asked clerks at the center to “allow” the car of Habib Jaafar to pass inspection.

When they informed Khatoun that the vehicle did not pass the inspection, Khatoun attacked Ali Musa Haidar, one of the employees who inspected the car, with a razor blade.

The security source said Haidar was injured in the chin.

Not only that, the source added, but Khatoun went beyond the limits and called in a group of men from the Miqdad family who promptly arrived at the center. The men, who came in with pistols holstered on their waists, fired several shots in the air.

As a result a scuffle broke out between employees at the center and people waiting for their vehicles to get inspected. Seven people in total were injured as a result of the scuffle.

The source said the injured were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

He said police launched a manhunt to arrest the Miqdads who had fled the center soon after the shooting.

The source said that the injured men, who have arrest warrants issued against them, decided not to file lawsuits.

The company's management and employees said they would not go back to work until the government provides them with protection and forbids any middlemen from entering the center to prevent similar future incidents.