IGP orders investigations into Dansoman shooting incident

The Inspector General of Police has directed the Criminal Investigations Department Headquarters to investigate the killing of four persons in a Tico taxicab at Dansoman in the early hours of Friday.

The dead were two women and two men.

A statement signed by ASP Kwesi Ofori, Deputy Director of Police Public Affairs, said a Policeman in mufti reported to the Dansoman Police Station that he had been attacked at gunpoint by six persons in a Tico taxicab and robbed of 200,000 cedis and a Nokia mobile phone. It said a Dansoman Police Team that was dispatched to the scene sighted the suspected Tico taxicab at Dansoman, adding that one of the suspected robbers started firing on seeing the Police, who returned the fire.

The statement said the suspected robbers, who were holding weapons; jumped over a wall and escaped and four persons, including two women were later found dead in the vehicle.

It said one of the suspected robbers had been identified as Mallam Issa, who had been on the Police wanted list for robbery for sometime. The Police said its investigations were ongoing to ascertain the identity and role of the women involved in the incident, and also to unravel whether the women had been unfortunate victims of the robbery or were part of a robbery syndicate.

The statement indicated that two other complainants had reported to the Police that they had been robbed by the occupants of the same taxicab and had been able to identify one of the dead.

In another development, the statement said another robbery was reported in the Dansoman vicinity, in which an unknown taxi driver introduced three prospective male passengers to a fellow taxi driver at Dansoman.

The passengers claimed they were going to Sakaman, but while negotiating the fare, the three passengers pulled out cutlasses and robbed him of his taxicab, a mobile phone and unspecified amount. When the taxi driver reported the incident to the Dansoman Police, they dispatched a team to Sakaman. The Police team met the robbers, who had hijacked the taxicab on the way.

The Police pursued the suspects, who exchanged fire with the Police. They managed to escape leaving the taxicab behind. An inspection of the taxicab led to the discovery of bloodstains and two broken teeth. One of the suspects, identified as Sumaila, has been traced to a hospital, where he is currently under Police guard. He sustained gunshot wounds on his mouth and at the back of his neck and had lost two of his teeth.

The statement said Sumaila had been on Police wanted list for robbery.

Meanwhile the families of Lydia Opoku, alias Awo, and Attaah Boatemaa alias Attaah, the two lady victims of the shooting incident, have expressed shock at their untimely death.

A woman believed to be the mother of Awo, wailed and sang sorrowfully at the Dansoman Estates, wondering why Awo and Attaah should be mistaken for armed robbers to meet their death in their early forties.

Residents at Dansoman Zodiac, who trooped to the Dansoman Police Station, where the bodies of the four victims and the car in which they were shot were sent, expressed similar shock. There were bloodstains on the two taxicabs.

The Dansoman Police directed the media to the Greater Accra Regional Police Headquarters for any enquiries. The GNA has learned a fifth person, who was injured in the incident was on admission at the 37th Military Hospital.

Family sources also told the GNA that Awo's bag was snatched by someone in a taxicab at the Zodiac area at Dansoman, where Attaah, a childhood friend, had accompanied her to board a vehicle to travel to Togo.