Police Kills Robber•On STC
A RECENTLY enlisted constable has earned an early feather for himself after fighting a masked armed robber and killing him.
The masked man was part of a group which stopped a State Transport Company (STC) bus en route to Accra from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso at the weekend.
DAILY GUIDE has learnt that when the constable was assigned the duty of escorting the bus from Bolga to Accra he showed reluctance, knowing little at the time that it was an opportunity to prove his marksmanship.
The action took place between Busiga and Kukuobila village near Walewale in the Northern Region when the armed robbers stopped the bus.
It is now a standard to assign armed cops to buses plying the Bolga to Accra route because of the marauding armed robbers.
The STC bus with registration number GR 9037 X stopped upon the orders of two armed masked hoodlums but the driver, Mustapha Akela and his assistant, asked the passengers to lie down to avoid being caught in a possible shootout.
The driver's assistant then opened the back door of the bus to allow the escort to exit and take action.
One of the passengers, Yeye Matione, a Burkinabe, then seated on the front seat, stood up but was shot on the shoulder by one of the armed robbers.
Another robber went to the backdoor and ordered the passengers to get off the bus. The escort waited for an opportune moment to open fire and just when the armed robber got close enough he took aim at his throat and fired.
The armed robber dropped dead after losing so much blood.
Even in death, his corpse was beaten by the mortuary attendant at the Bolgatanga Hospital.
One of the robbers at the fore of the bus, also armed with an AK47, escaped into a nearby bush.
The bus then proceeded to Tamale where injured Matione was admitted including a lady passenger who was treated and discharged.
The police escort recovered from the dead robber an AK47 with registration number 568960/1976 loaded with 17 rounds.
When Police visited the crime scene to convey the corpse, they found a magazine with 23 rounds of ammo in the pocket of the deceased including 10 empty shells.
In a related development the Police have arrested three suspected armed robbers following an armed robbery on the Bole/Bamboi road in the Northern Region on May 30, 2008.
According to an escort on board the bus, on reaching a section of the road between Sakpa and Sirepe village near Bole, six armed robbers suspected to be Fulanis blocked the road, wielding four shotguns.
The robbers searched the passengers and dispossessed them of their money and mobile phones, seizing also two unregistered motorbikes.
The motorbikes were then on board a KIA truck which had just arrived on the scene.
After the operation the six robbers fled on the motorbikes they had seized as they fired several shots.
When the Police swooped on the area they succeeded in arresting three suspects, Mahama Kwame, Sulley Bodua and Atta Abudu.
Earlier on May 17, 2008 another batch of robbers had blocked a section of the road between Bole and Bamboi, seizing mobile phones and several amounts of money from passengers. The foregone crimes are being investigated, according to the Northern Regional Police Command's PRO, Inspector Albert Johnson.
By A.R. Gomda