A middle-aged man identified as a labourer, was on Wednesday allegedly shot dead by the operatives of Ebonyi State Police Command while three persons sustained various degrees of injuries as a result of a clash between a soldier and the operatives.
The incident occured at the Ugwuechara axis of the Enugu/Abakaliki Expressway when the crack team stopped a bike man alleged to be a soldier and wanted to confiscate his motorcycle.
Findings revealed that in the process, one bystander and three others sustained injuries when the alleged soldier and the crack team were scuffling for the bike.
Confirming the incident, the State Commissioner for Police, CP Adaku Uche-Anya, said both the policeman and the soldier are in custody while an investigation has been launched into the incident.
“Policemen on stop and search stopped the purported soldier at that time, wanted to search him, he refused and there was a scuffle between them”.
“The soldier was trying to disarm one of the police operatives, then the bullet went off and hit a bystander, it’s not as if they just opened fire on an innocent by-stander, just that during the scuffle, the bullet went off and hit the by-stander”
The Commissioner disclosed that the three injured persons were responding to treatment in a hospital.
In an interview, an eyewitness narrated that the bike man introduced himself to the policemen as military personnel but the Crack Team started molesting and beating him.
The eye witness said, “As the policemen removed his cap and started hitting him with their guns and the bike man tried to resist them, possibly to snatch one of their guns,”
“So one of the team fired which killed one labour seekers, who usually gather at the junction to look for a daily job”.
“Another three persons were also critically wounded and were rushed to the hospital, the corpse of the labourer and the bike man were later taken to the station by the men of the Crack Squad”, the source narrated.
