Two female
undergraduate robbery suspects and their male partner in crime were battered
and stripped naked in Calabar, Friday afternoon, for attempting to rob a
businesswoman of N1.5 million.
The three suspects
operating in a Golf car were accosted by a taxi driver at about 4pm along the
Murtala Muhammed Highway by the Cross River State new secretariat, while their
driver and one other suspect escaped.
The gang reportedly
ambushed the businesswoman who had gone to withdraw the N1.5 million at a bank
along Calabar Road, near the Watt market, where they approached her to join
their cab and the woman who appeared eager to arrive home because of the money
she had withdrawn immediately accepted and boarded the taxi.
Trouble started as
she got to her destination and discovered that the taxi driver became unwilling
to allow her alight from the vehicle. The robbery suspects were said to have
brought out guns and asked her to cooperate with them if she did not want to
get hurt.
The victim told
Vanguard, "The suspects told me to cooperate with them and quietly hand
over the N1.5 million or I would be killed." She said she suddenly became
"angry in the spirit because this money is contribution money and my
members who want to share the money on Sunday so they could get their Christmas
things early would not believe me. So I was ready to die and began to raise
alarm in the vehicle and calling for help".
She said her shouts
attracted the attention of a taxi driver who decided to give the Golf car a hot
chase until he overtook and blocked the vehicle at Atekong Drive".
The driver of the
five-man gang and another suspect escaped by quickly alighting from the car and
running across the highway and then jumping the perimeter fence of the new
secretariat. She added, "These two ladies were apprehended by the people
who came to see what was the trouble between the two taxis. They began to beat
them when they heard what they had done to me."
The suspects who were
thoroughly beaten and stripped were later handed over to police who came to the
scene. Vanguard learnt that the ladies confessed that they were students of
Ebonyi State University and members of a syndicate which left Abakaliki in
Ebonyi State to Aba in Abia State.
When contacted, the
Police Public Relations officer of the State Police Command, Mr. Hoggan Bassey
confirmed that the three suspects were in police custody, saying they would
soon be charged to court.
His words,
"nemesis has caught up with them. They are being investigated and so far
they have confessed that they used to hang around bank premises with their car,
shouting one chance, one chance and waiting for people coming out of the bank
with money.
"The Cross River
State police commissioner Shola Shodipo has promised armed robbers, kidnappers
and other criminals a raw deal this Christmas season. Cross River State is the
most peaceful state in Nigeria and we are prepared to compromise the crime free
status of the state."
No comments:
Post a Comment