TWO SUSPECTED highway robbers have been shot dead, and one suspect has been nabbed, whilst the police are on the heels of two others, who escaped from the crime scene at Abodom near Bekwai on Monday dawn.
According to the police, they had intelligence that some highway robbers were planning to block the road between Abodom and Koniyaw in order to rob innocent market women that would be attending the Bekwai Market Day.
Armed with this credible information, the Ashanti Regional Police Anti-Robbery Team dispatched their men to the Abodom community near Bekwai, in order to foil the planned robbery plot and apprehend the suspected hoodlums.
But even before the police could alight from their vehicle at the crime scene around 3am on Monday, March 2, 2022, the robbers, who were numbering five, without provocation, opened fire on them, thereby putting the lives of the police in danger.
The armed policemen then had no other option than to return fire as they also shot at the direction of the robbers. In the process, two of the suspects were hit by bullets and killed, one other was nabbed and two others managed to escape.
“On March 2, 2022, about 3am, following intelligence received that a gang of robbers would operate around Bekwai at dawn today, the regional anti robbery team, led by an SPO, rushed to Abodom near Bekwai and spotted a Mazda mini bus with registration number AK 179-19, which suspected armed robbers had brought there and parked.
“They had blocked the road between Abodom-Koniyaw with wooden logs. That on seeing the anti robbery police vehicle, the suspects opened fire at the vehicle and the anti robbery team returned fire,” a police report noted.
The report, sighted by the paper added that, “Bullets hit two of the robbers and they died whilst being rushed to the Okomfo Anokye Teaching Hospital for treatment. One was arrested and the other two fled into the nearby bush.”
It said exhibits including four face masks, two cutlasses, three pump action guns, all loaded with AAA live ammunition and 30 spare AAA ammunition were retrieved from the hoodlums, adding that the police car was hit by bullets.
The police also said they suspect these same robbers were the ones who blocked the road at Anwiankwanta and robbed passengers onboard a Takoradi-Kumasi bound bus about a week ago.
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi