Five persons have been killed at Nyinawusu in the Atwima Nwabiagya Municipality of the Ashanti Region when they were accused of being armed robbers.
According to the police, their investigations showed that the deceased persons and one other were illegal miners and inhabitants of Akorabuokrom in the Atwima Mponua District who went to the area to engage in mining activities.
The District Police Commander for Nyinahini, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), Jerry James Amekah, indicated that after they engaged in the mining activities on Thursday, evening, they were invited to the Nyinawusu Chief’s palace and interrogated after some youth in the area accused them of being behind armed robbery activities that took place in the area some few days earlier.
A section of the inhabitants then besieged the Chief’s Palace threatening to kill the accused persons.
The Chief was said to have called in the police to intervene, but before they arrived, the residents had pounced on them and killed four of the suspects, leaving one in a critical condition, who later died at a hospital.
One of the victims was, however, able to escape.
Inhabitants of Akorabuokrom, where all the five persons who were lynched came from, have been threatening to engage in reprisal attacks if the perpetrators were not apprehended as early as possible.
DSP Amekah said “police used minimum force, but it did not work. They even damaged two of our vehicles and injured some of our personnel.”
“One of them even used a knife to cut the throat of one of the victims. That’s very barbaric indeed,” DSP Amekah said.
Nana Frimpong has called on the police to do everything possible in their power to bring whoever was involved in the act to book.
“There is no way around it. Lynching is a criminal offence. The suspects didn’t do anything and they killed them,” the Chief said.
FROM KINGSLEY E.HOPE, KUMASI
