SUSPECTED land guards at Ayikuma in the Shai Osudoku District of the Greater Accra region have gone on loose, attacking a developer cum block manufacturer, and allegedly robbing him of GHC23, 700.
Narrating the incident to the Ghanaian Times last Friday, as confirmed by the Dodowa Police, the victim (name withheld), said the unprovoked attack happened in the late afternoon of Friday, August 31,, 2019.
He said it all started when a family, who had won a land case decided to demarcate the land and thus sought the assistance of the police to undertake the exercise, to ward off land guards.
According to the victim, because his block factory was not far from where the land was the police, numbering about 20, after providing the necessary security congregated at his factory to have their meal.
“So on the morning of the Friday after the land demarcation; five of land guards came to the factory and accused me of bringing the police. They ordered me to stop work and threatened to kill me if a dared open the shop.
“I quickly called some of my workers, who were around to come bear me witness that I had no hand in the deployment of the police but they were met with slaps. I reported the incident and one of the boys who was injured was issued a police medical form to seek attention at the hospital”, he said.
In the evening of that Friday, he said, while preparing to close for the day, about 16 land guards stormed his factory in four vehicles, with registration number GE 4298 – 19, broke into his wooden office and took away his money.
Later that night, the victim said he saw a car trailing him and reported to the police for protection to which the police deployed five personnel of the night patrol team.
He said the men trailing him confronted the patrol team and “marched them to their boss’s house. The police later came to tell me that I was safe.”
“Since then, my block factory has been shut because they came to reiterate that should I open to business, they will kill me.”
Confirming the incident to the Ghanaian Times, the Dodowa District Police Commander, Superintendent Harrison Katso, said three suspects have been arrested, cautioned and granted bail and that “we are looking for the rest of them.”
Supt Katso said the land guard menace was rife in the area, but “we can’t get hold of the suspects because when people come and report to you that land guards have attacked them, before you get there, they are gone and tracing them becomes a problem.”
The police, he said, was doing anything possible including snap patrols to tame the land guards in the area including the victim’s factory to ensure that he continued with the operation of his factory without any hindrance from the suspects.
FROM JULIUS YAO PETETSI, AYIKUMA
