Confirming the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer, Udeviotu Emmanuel, however said the police was yet to find out the cause of the incident that killed a bystander for which the two police operatives were being held.
An eyewitness account said the event that started on the evening of Monday, November 16, at about 6.30 p.m. when a team of eight policemen arrived the sleepy village to raid a local palm wine shop, arresting and beating people who came to relax and taking them allegedly to the Central Police Station in Umuahia.
As if that was not enough, the same group re-appeared at the same spot to arrest more people, including a tricycle rider and took them also to the Chief Police Superintendent in Umuahia.
The same group of police team appeared again around 2.30 -3.00 p.m., this time at another palm wine shop, located close to Amator Community Primary/Nursery School, Agbo and arrested more people, from whom nothing incriminating was found.
Not satified, the police team, now thought to be on illegal duty decided to drag the owner of the shop, Emeka (popularly known as Freezone) into their van.
It was said that this attracted the youths of the area, while efforts by the leader of the youth in the area was beaten and threatened with gunshot.
Following the intervention of the youth chairman and other elders in the community, the policemen were said to have started shooting into the air, as one of them with blood-shot eye made good his threat of killing someone by lowering his gun down and shooting into the gathering crowd.
While one man had a bullet fly close to his ear, the victim, who was not even part of the gathering was not lucky as one of the bullets got him through the chin and exited through the back of his head. The man, who just collected his children from school, died.
Sources said that the policemen, seeing that they had committed murder, boarded their vehicle and ran away through the crowd, who followed them to the CPS, Umuahia, where they were sighted pulling of their uniforms in a hurry.
The matter was reported, to the State Commissioner of Police, who, it was said, visited the venue of the incident the next day, November 17.
An eyewitness said the corpse of the victim was later taken at about 8 p.m. to an undisclosed morgue.
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) said he was aware of the incident, but could not confirm if they were on illegal duty or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment