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- We’ll re-investigate the matter –CP assures
From TIMOTHY OLANREWAJU, Maiduguri
the family of a 19-year-old man arrested over a fight with three other young men in Maiduguri, Borno State, has accused the police of improper investigation and compromise of their role.
Mohammed Abdulsalam was arrested, detained and charged to court in Maiduguri by the police after a woman and her three sons allegedly fought with him in his family house at New GRA, Maiduguri, recently. His family claimed the police did not carry out proper investigations before their son was arraigned at a magistrate court despite the avalanche of evidence provided to the Gwange Police Station in Maiduguri where the case was reported.
“On August 27, 2017, one Fatima Mustapha and her three sons came to Mohammed Abdulsalam’s family house and attacked him. In the process, one of her sons (the woman’s sons) got injured when the attack was going on. Despite that he was the one that was attacked in his family house, the said Fatima and her sons went to Gwange Police Station and reported him.
“Despite the evidence before the police, they took side in the investigation as the police refused to listen to his side of the story but rather relied on what Fatima and her children told them,” the family said in a petition written to the Borno State Commissioner of Police through their lawyer, Abba Bashir.
In the petition dated August 30, the family said they had “lost confidence in the way and manner the Gwange Police handled the case” without granting their son “the right to fair hearing.” They alleged that the “police rather chose to suppress so many evidence that would shed more light on the case.” They accused the police officer handling the case of taking sides with the family of the three young men that allegedly attacked their son.
“How can the victim of a fight who was attacked in his family house about 10:20pm during curfew also be the accused person?” Mohammed’s father, Alhaji Husseini, asked.
He said the injury sustained by one of the three men that allegedly attacked his son was as a result of self defence. “The statement written by my son (a copy of which he gave to Sunday Sun) when he was arrested by the police indicated that he was attacked by the three men with a sharp object and while trying to defend himself in the hands of the three attackers and their mother, one of the men got injured,” he claimed.
He alleged that the father of the three men, who is a member of the Borno State House of Assembly, interfered with the police investigation, though he could not provide any concrete evidence to justify his claim.
He said he got wind of the claim following his interaction with the police officer handling his son’s case. He said the police rushed the matter to court few days after his son was arrested “without taking cognisance of the statement of the victim and without completing investigation on the matter including the issue of drugs which was the cause of the fight.”
He claimed that the refusal of his son to buy drugs for one of the three young men fueled the alleged attack on his son, alleging that the man concerned thereafter mobilized his siblings and mother to beat his son in his house at night on the fateful day.
Borno State Commissioner of Police, Damian Chukwu told Sunday Sun he had ordered for withdrawal of the case from the court by the Gwange Police station for proper investigation. “I can assure you we are not compromising the standard of policing. We will withdraw the case from court as soon as I attend to the petition of the family and I will direct the Gwange DPO (Divisional Police Officer) to conduct thorough investigation on the case. I will personally follow it and anybody found culpable after the reinvestigation would be appropriately charged to court,” he said.
Chukwu assured that the police would do thorough investigation and remain unbiased in the matter, urging the family of the boy arrested by the police to rebuild their confidence in the Nigerian police.
