Agitated that more and more customers are opting for online home rental startups, a group real estate agents and brokers in HSR layout in southeast Bengaluru attacked an online house-finding start-up on September 15. The real estate agents accused the start-up, NoBroker, for taking away their client base.

ToI reported that, on Tuesday morning, more than 50 real estate agents and brokers in the area attacked the headquarters of NoBroker. The protest had initially started around the online house-hunting marketplace office. The protesters shouted slogans that the company was destroying their livelihood.

According to the newspaper report there were around 100 employees, including 30 women, when the group barged into the office, said Amit Agarwal, CEO, NoBroker.com.

“We tried our best to pacify the protesters but the group was aggressive. We finally had to call police,” he said.

The company’s press release said that some of their employees were assaulted when they tried to stop the mob from entering their office premises. The HSR layout police took the protesters to the police station and let them off with a warning.

Several service-aggregators, like taxi apps and e-tailers, have been facing the wrath of traditional operators in their respective sectors.