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| [FILE PHOTO] Nigeria Police |
The police in Enugu State have come under heavy knocks over an alleged demand of N50,000 from some robbery victims in the state.
It was gathered that residents of Uwani, in Enugu, the state capital, were on Wednesday night robbed by a three-man gang, who inflicted injuries on some of the victims.
Luck had however run out on one of the members of the gang while being chased by a mob. He was said to have fallen into a drainage and caught by the mob. A laptop and mobile phones stolen from the victims were recovered from him.
According to a source, “the mob beat him to stupor. The police from Uwani Division later came and whisked him away. However, the matter took another dimension as the police started demanding money from the victims.”
One of the victims said on anonymity that “the policemen earlier collected N15,000 from us after taking our statement. After that, they started to demand N50,000 from us. They said the money would be used in taking care of medical bills of the robbery suspect.
“They threatened that if we don’t bring the money, we would go to prison should anything happen to the suspect. As I speak to you, some of our items have not been recovered. We were severely macheted by the robbers and right now, nobody is talking about how we will be treated.”
When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ebere Amaraizu, confirmed the story, saying however, that the matter had been “transferred to the state CID for investigation”.
He, however, denied knowledge of the demand for N50,000, even as he said it was wrong for anybody to have taken laws into his hands by descending on a robbery suspect.
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Luck had however run out on one of the members of the gang while being chased by a mob. He was said to have fallen into a drainage and caught by the mob. A laptop and mobile phones stolen from the victims were recovered from him.
According to a source, “the mob beat him to stupor. The police from Uwani Division later came and whisked him away. However, the matter took another dimension as the police started demanding money from the victims.”
One of the victims said on anonymity that “the policemen earlier collected N15,000 from us after taking our statement. After that, they started to demand N50,000 from us. They said the money would be used in taking care of medical bills of the robbery suspect.
“They threatened that if we don’t bring the money, we would go to prison should anything happen to the suspect. As I speak to you, some of our items have not been recovered. We were severely macheted by the robbers and right now, nobody is talking about how we will be treated.”
When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ebere Amaraizu, confirmed the story, saying however, that the matter had been “transferred to the state CID for investigation”.
He, however, denied knowledge of the demand for N50,000, even as he said it was wrong for anybody to have taken laws into his hands by descending on a robbery suspect.
In this article: