THERE SEEMS to be confusion in Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region, following the shooting to death of seven suspected armed robbers by the police at Manso Nkwanta on Tuesday afternoon.
Residents of the city seemed sharply divided as to whether the police were right by killing the seven young men, who allegedly invaded Manso Nkwanta to rob innocent people.
The death of the seven people is said to have ignited anger among some of the youth in the various zongo communities in Kumasi. They have threatened to hit the streets in protest against what they termed as “police brutalities”.
But the Ashanti Regional Police Command insisted they acted professionally by defending themselves in the face of a severe attack by the robbers, for which reason nobody can blame them for ending the lives of the seven people.
The death of the seven people has certainly created an uneasy situation across the various zongo communities in the Ashanti regional capital.
Many people wailed and expressed anguish when DAILY GUIDE visited some of the zongo communities, where the seven people lived before they were killed on that fateful Tuesday afternoon.
Threats from Zongo
So far, residents of the zongo communities, especially members of the bereaved families, have accused the police of rushing to open fire on the seven people who did not pose any security threat to them (police).
They alleged that the police had the liberty to apprehend the seven people to assist them in their investigations and possibly face prosecution; therefore, they don’t understand why the seven were killed in that weird manner.
A section of the zongo residents also complained that the killing of people living in the zongo areas by the police was rapidly becoming too many in recent times; hence they threatened not to keep silent over this recent shooting.
According to the residents, they are planning to stage series of demonstrations in the city to openly demonstrate their anger in the coming days, which would be followed by a possible legal action if their demands failed to materialize.
Police’s Argument
In a related development, the Ashanti Regional Police Commander, DCOP Akwasi Duku, during a press conference on Wednesday, explained that it was never the intention of the police to kill the seven people on Tuesday.
According to him, the police had a tip-off that some robbers were planning to pounce on some unsuspecting people and the police rushed to the place, with the sole intention of arresting them to face the law.
However, DCOP Duku explained that the police had to change their tactics at the eleventh-hour when the suspected robbers refused to pay heed to their order for them to stop; they also fired gunshots at the police.
The Ashanti Regional Police Commander stressed that the seven people were indeed armed robbers, who had terrorized the people of Manso Nkwanta in recent times, adding that the police acted in self-defense after the robbers had shot at them.
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi