POLICE SWOOP ON 16 GUN-RUNNERS

By: Issah Alhassan, Kumasi
RESIDENTS IN Kumasi yesterday experienced moment of scare when a Tamale-bound Metro Mass Transit Bus fully loaded with locally made weapons, was intercepted by the Buffalo Unit of the Regional Police Command.

Officials at the MMT Bus station at Abrepo Junction, a popular suburb in Kumasi alerted the police about the bus with registration number AS 6810Z, which was en route to Tamale from Osino in the Eastern Region around 1130am on Sunday with packed guns at the basement of the vehicle

Sixteen people, including the driver of the bus, were arrested in connection with the incident, which was initially speculated to be linked to disturbances in the northern part of the country.

The police would, however, not give details of the incident but denied the weapons were meant to cause any form of chaos or violence.

Personnel at the Buffalo Unit told The Chronicle upon arrival at the station that the locally made guns would not pose any threat because it was not manufactured to take bullets but rather gun powder used in royal and high profile funerals.

According to information gathered by the paper, the weapons were discovered by some 'loading boys' at the MMT terminal when they attempted to offload the goods from the bus, as it is the normal practice done to every vehicle that arrives at the terminal.

Information indicates that the driver and some passengers on the bus initially prevented the 'loading boys' from discharging the goods contending that the bus had only come to the terminal to refuel and not to offload passengers.

The passengers, reports indicate, engaged the loading boys in physical fisticuffs, injuring some of them, after the boys discovered that there were weapons packed at the basement of the bus.

In the ensuing confrontation, some officers of the MMT alerted the regional police command, which quickly dispatched personnel from the Buffalo Unit to the bus station.

The police team subsequently arrested sixteen passengers who claimed ownership of the weapons and sent them to the station. The suspect reportedly told the police that they were returning from a funeral at Osino.