Police arrest 3 over Eastern Region shrine shooting incident

The Eastern Region Police have arrested three people for their roles in the shooting incident that killed two people at the Obuotabiri shrine on Friday.

Deputy Eastern Region Police Commander, ACP James Abass, told Joy News’ Dzifa Bampoh that 38-year-old Kwabena Osei was loading a single-barreled musket to fire as part of festival celebrations when the gun went off inadvertently.

Kwabena Osei, ACP Abass explained, is related to the Priestess of the Obuotabiri shrine.

He said apart from Kwabena Osei, two of the event organizers have also been arrested.

“The organisers should have notified the police and this notification would have given us the opportunity to protect the citizens who were there”, he said.

ACP Abass said it is not for nothing that the law requires for Police presence at public events.

“If we were notified and we were there, we would have prevented the deaths because we would not have allowed [Kwabena Osei] to use the gun and secondly to load the gun in front of a crowd”, the Police Commander said.

Two people were killed after a loaded gun went off in a crowded area in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

The incident happened Friday at the 30th-anniversary celebration of the installation of a fetish priestess known as Mmotia Komfo in the regional capital, Koforidua.

The victims are Kojo Kakari, 68, and an 8-year-old girl who was the only child of her parents.

Her grandmother, wailing uncontrollably, told Joy News’ Kofi Siaw the girl’s parents struggled for 22 years before she was conceived.

A third person Lydia Boateng, 55 sustained serious injuries on her hands.

An eyewitness told Kofi Siaw one of the celebrants loaded the gun and carelessly left it on the ground.

Out of the blue, whilst the celebration was on-going at the Obuotabiri shrine, the trigger got pulled by itself and fired into the people killing the two instantly, an eyewitness said.

The bodies have been deposited at the morgue.