•Pistol, ammunition, cartridges, hard drugs recovered
Police operatives in Delta State Command on Sunday, June 5, 2022, killed three suspected kidnappers in a gun duel.
Making this known on Tuesday, June 7, the state command’s Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Bright Edafe, said that at about 12:35pm on that day, some armed hoodlums suspected to be kidnappers numbering about five suddenly emerged from the bush around Umunede while operatives of Command’s Rapid Response Squad were on undercover anti-crime patrol along Asaba/Benin expressway.
The suspects reportedly fired gunshots at the bus in which the undercover operatives were, in an attempt to rob and possibly kidnap the occupants.
“The team smartly disembarked from the vehicle and returned fire. The armed hoodlums, on realizing that their targeted victims were policemen, ran into the bush. The team went into a fierce gun duel with the hoodlums during which three members of the gang were fatally wounded and one fabricated revolver pistol, six 7.62mm live ammunition and four expended 7.62mm ammunition were recovered from them.
“The injured hoodlums were taken to the hospital but died while receiving treatment. Manhunt for the fleeing members of the gang is ongoing,” Edafe said.
Again, according to the PPRO, on June 5, operatives of Eagle-Net Special Squad, while on patrol along Asaba-Ogwashi-Uku expressway, intercepted a commercial vehicle at about 4pm.
During a search of the vehicle, 4,054 wraps of substance suspected to be cocaine and 954 wraps of heroin were recovered in a bag belonging to one of the passengers identified as Edea Samuel aged 20, a resident of Ochele Street off Ojugbana Drive Ezenei, Asaba.
Also, on June 4, a suspect, Suleiman Musa, aged 48, found with 540 rounds of live cartridges, was arrested at about 2:45pm.
Operatives of the Command’s Anti-Cult Unit were said to have acted on a tip-off, raiding a criminal hideout in an uncompleted building along Maryam Babangida Way, opposite North-West filling Station, Asaba, where the live cartridges along with three generators, a solar light, a sewing machine, two television sets and a motorcycle, all suspected to have been stolen, were recovered.
The police spokesman, who stated that investigations were ongoing on all the arrests, added that the state Commissioner of Police, Ari Muhammed Ali, assured residents of the Command’s commitment to flushing out all criminals in the state.
The police commissioner also urged the residents to be mindful of any suspicious persons or movements in their environment and promptly report such to the police.
