Posted by By KENNY ASHAKA, Kaduna on
Even with a vow Thursday by President Olusegun Obasanjo that culprits in the Apo Six would not go unpunished, another scandal has erupted in Kaduna where policemen allegedly killed a family head and his two sons.
Even with a vow Thursday by President Olusegun Obasanjo that culprits in the Apo Six would not go unpunished, another scandal has erupted in Kaduna where policemen allegedly killed a family head and his two sons.
Following the incident, emotions are now running high at Garun-Kurama in the Lere Local Government Area of Kaduna as the villagers have threatened fire and brimstone.
The family head, 70-year-old Abdulkadir Azeez, and his two sons were reportedly killed by a team of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) from the Force Headquarters, Abuja.
He had his head shattered under a hail of bullets before his son Shehu, 27, a tailor, rushed to the scene on hearing the sound of gunshots. He, too, was reportedly shot for demanding to know why his dad was killed in cold blood.
Not daunted by the bloody scene, the team allegedly went in search of the second son, Ibrahim, 30, the original suspect they came for. He too was allegedly shot despite pleas by his wife, Adama. Amid sobs, the widow narrated the story:
"I was sleeping in the parlour when the gunmen entered our house. I did not even know of their arrival until when they woke me up with the barrel of their gun. They started beating me and asked me where my husband was. Before I could answer, they stormed into the bedroom where my husband was. I rushed to the room and held him, crying and begging them to leave him alone, but they pushed me away and shot him with a gun."
By dawn, the entire Abdulkadir Azeez family had been subsumed in mourning as the three wives of those allegedly murdered by the police wept uncontrollably. Maimuna, 50, wife of the 70-year-old man wept profusely.
She cursed the society that produced the type of policemen that opened fire on her loved ones. "The policemen that shot our husbands, where are they? Why should we be made widows like this? Why are policemen after innocent citizens these days?," Maimuna queried.
Mallam Miagamo Surubu, the village head of Garun-Kurama, a serene community between Kafanchan and Saminaka, about 50km from Samaru-Kataf and 30km from Saminaka,told Sunday Sun that his subjects informed him about the killing of three of the villagers by men who came in three vehicles.
"I went to the District Head at 5am. We rushed to the Divisional Police Officer in Saminaka. We were told that he had gone to Kaduna. We met the Second in Command and asked him to come and evacuate the corpses. People crowded and he pleaded with us to take the photographs of the dead. We cooperated and took the photos and buried the dead," he explained.
Contacted, the police authorities in Kaduna said their men merely responded to a gunshot fired at the team.
But solicitors to the Garun-Kurama Community and a Human Rights Group insisted that it was a case of extra-judicial killings.
The Kaduna State Police Commissioner, Mr. John Hamza Ahmadu, made efforts to justify the action of the killer cops. Said he: "Information available to this command from the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) Force Headquarters, Abuja revealed that the Nigeria Police High Command in pursuance of the policy of recovering of illegally arms and ammunition as well as the arrest of such suspects, arrived Garun-Kurama in Lere Local Government at about 0320hrs on the 28th of July 2005.
"They had in their custody some suspects earlier arrested who led them to the area. In an attempt to arrest the suspect, they heard gunshots fired at the team, and they fired back which subsequently resulted in the death of the three suspects believed to be members of the wanted gang," he said.
The police boss also said that the Special Anti-Robbery Squad has witnesses and exhibits, all pointing to the fact that the suspects "are accomplices" and promised that SARS would release investigation report of the incident in due course.
However, Emmanuel Toro and Gabriel Didam, both solicitors to the Garun-Kurama community in their petition to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, entitled "Cry For Justice Over Extra Judicial Killings At Garun-Kurama, in Lere Local Government of Kaduna State", accused the police of attempt to cover up.
In the petition, copies of which were sent to the Governor of Kaduna State, the Inspector-General of Police, Speaker of the Kaduna State House of Assembly, Senator Dalhatu Sarki Tafida and others, the attorneys said the policemen led by one Sergeant Williams and accompanied by a Fulani man called Isiaku allegedly stormed the village at 3am when all inhabitants of the community were already asleep.
"On arrival, the policemen proceeded straight to Mallam Abdulkadir Azeez's house. These strange visitors woke Mallam Abdulkadir Azeez, a 70-year-old man, from his sleep at such an ungodly hour. As he came out of his room, the policemen shot and killed him instantly.
"Shehu, son of Mallam Abdulkadir Azeez, on hearing gunshots came out of his room only to see armed policemen with his father lying dead in a pool of his blood. The confused and dumbfounded Shehu asked what offence they had committed, but the police opened fire and killed him like his father for no offence committed by them.
"The police thereafter forced open Ibrahim's room, went in and killed the said Ibrahim inside his room. It is noteworthy that according to the policemen, it was the late Ibrahim that was the suspect the police came to arrest. A mission to arrest an alleged suspect turned out to be a bloody killing of his father, and his two sons," the solicitors said in the petition.
Before his death, Ibrahim was the leader of a vigilante group in Garun-Kurama, a duty that placed the peace and security of the community on him.
Confirming the incident, the Executive Director of Human Rights Monitor, Barrister Festus Okoye, in a statement entitled "Murder At Dawn: The Case of Garun-Kurama" wants the Inspector-General of Police and the Attorney-General of the Federation to set-up a high-powered Judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate the circumstances leading to what he described as the cold-blooded murder of three members of the same family by the police.
Okoye also said such inquiry should include the conduct of a coroner's inquest and the identification of the officers that carried out the alleged murder.
The Human Rights Monitor's boss submitted that following the rising cases of "extra-judicial executions", President Olusegun Obasanjo should constitute a Judicial Commission of Enquiry with broad powers to carry out comprehensive investigations, assessment and analysis of rising cases of arbitrary arrests, torture and extra-judicial executions in the country.