•••As Police Arrest 129 Suspects, Rescue Six Kidnap Victims, Recover 25 Vehicles, 26 Guns, Others In Anambra
By John Ugo, Awka
The Anambra State Police Command has rescued six kidnap victims and arrested over 136 suspects involved in various offences in the past two months.
This is as the Inspector General of Police, IGP Kayode Egbetokun has declared amnesty for all terrorists, gunmen and those with illegally acquired arms in the South East geo political zone and other parts of the country.
He said that after the period of amnesty any one found to have guns in his custody would face the wrath of the law.
Commissioner of Police in the state, CP Aderemi Adeoye disclosed this on Monday during a press conference on the achievements of the command within the period and parade of suspects in Awka the state capital.
Among the suspects were five vandals of the Second Niger Bridge and three buyers of cables and other materials vandalized from the bridge.
Also, paraded were suspects involved in kidnapping, armed robbery, vehicle snatchers, cultists and others.
According to Adeoye, the breakdown of the figure shows that 30 suspected insurgents, 39 armed robbery suspects and 22 kidnap suspects.
A total of 26 guns , 93 rounds of ammunitiion and 25 stolen vehicles used for the kidnapping , 34 tricycles, Seven motorcycles and one full armoured cables were recovered during raids and other operations.
Hw stated further that 16 iron grills from second Niger Bridge were recovered.
Adeoye said, “One of most serious cult killers was traced to Enugu and arrested at his hide out and is now in police custody and his confession was mind bugging he also disclosed that his gang has killed four persons in Awka including a staff of popular security outfitz Blue Shield Security whom he alleged was a member of a rival cult group”
“We also smashed the insurgent camp in Ogbunka Community Orumba South local government area last Saturday ”
“We started the operations that led to the crack down some two months ago and it was based on an intelligence report that they were trying to kidnap a Divisional Police Officer DPO in the area”
“,We commenced investigation to ensure that no innocent life was lost and we made some arrests and interrogated them and the clue led us to the camp which was smashed last Friday.
“We made sure that the evil plan was not carried out and we put measures to protect the DPO and we are trailing the gang leader who is at large and ensure that he is arrested soon.
“The gang that specializes in intercepting commercial vehicles were arrested at Amaoka Ihiala and we also arrested five of the gang members that highjacked an 18-seater bus heading to Lagos and rescued the passengers and facilited their return to Lagos.
“Last week an our Ant Cult team intercepted three suspected cultists on a bike and recovered a pistol from them at Nsugbe “he said.
Adeoye als announced that the Command is on the trail of those that kidnapped the Chairman of Amazon Market two weeks ago.
The group is still holding the victim after collection a ransom of N5 million from his relatives.
He noted that the command cannot release findings from its preliminary investigation as it would jeopardize the man hunt for the suspects.
He noted that there was no stipulated time when the amnesty would end but urged members of the pubic to turn in their guns to the nearest Police station .
He said that DPOs and Area Commanders have been directed not to arrest or intimidate anyone that comes to hand over guns .
