Police officers have engaged in serious altercation with a mob while trying to rescue a man from being lynched by the angry youths.
A stray bullet said to have been fired by a policeman killed one person in Olomi area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, on Sunday when mob after a man was allegedly caught by a vigilance group with a human head in the area, The Punch reports.
It was learnt that after the vigilance group allegedly caught the man, identified as Taheed Musiliu, with a cellophane bag containing a human head, a mob gathered to lynch the suspect.
A police patrol team, however, arrived the scene to prevent the mob from killing the suspect preferring rather to arrest the man for interrogation.
The mob, however, protested the police action by preventing the patrol team to take away the suspect.
According to The Punch, it was gathered that the police patrol team fired tear gas canister to disperse the mob after they blocked all the street gates leading to the scene.
But the mob were adamant on executing jungle justice on the suspect. This led to commotion when the mob became confrontational and attacked the police.
Dangerous weapons were said to have been used to attack the police team while their van was vandalised.
All the gates leading to the area were said to have been locked by the mob to ensure that the suspect was not taken away by the police.
However, a bullet fired by one of the policemen hit one person among the mob leading to his death.
The Police Public Relations Officer of the Oyo State Police Command, Adekunle Ajisebutu, who confirmed the incident, said the suspect was eventually taken to police custody for interrogation.
He added that one person died as a result of a stray bullet while 27 persons were arrested.
Ajisebutu said the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department of the command had begun investigation into the incident, adding that the mob were angered because they claimed that the mobile telephone of the suspect had among its contact persons, some names of Divisional Police Officers of the command.
He said, “On the reports that the suspect has telephone contacts of four DPOs, it is possible and there is no crime in having them. Every member of the public should know that DPOs are public officers and their telephone numbers are always given to the members of the public.
“I am the PPRO for the command and many members of the public have my number. If any of the people that have my contact is arrested for a crime and you find my number on his phone, would you say I am a culprit? The police have the right to ensure that jungle justice is not passed on anybody.
“A suspect was arrested with a human head. The police were called. In the process of taking the suspect to the police station, some hoodlums armed with dangerous weapons attacked the policemen, injured two and destroyed their patrol vehicles and attempted to set them ablaze for not allowing them to carry out extrajudicial killing of the suspect.
“The armed hoodlums barricaded the street gates against the policemen. The injured policemen were rushed to the hospital for medical attention. Twenty-seven of the hoodlums were arrested and the suspect found with human head was eventually rescued. The case is currently under investigation by the state CIID.”
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