Two female undergraduate robbery suspects and their male partner in crime were battered and stripped naked in Calabar on Friday afternoon for attempting to rob a Calabar-based businesswoman of N1. 5million Naira. The three suspects operating in a gulf car were accosted by a taxi driver at about 4pm along the Murtala Mohammed Highway by the Cross River State New Secretariat. The gang reportedly ambushed the businesswoman who had gone to withdraw the sum of 1.5 million naira 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they approached her to join their cab and the woman who appeared eager to arrive home because of the money she had withdrawn immediately accepted and boarded the taxi.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 only to discover that the Taxi driver became unwilling to allow her alight from the vehicle and the robbers bringing out a gun and asking her to cooperate with them if she did not want to get hurt. When the suspects made their intension known, “They told me to cooperate with them and quietly hand over the N1. 5 million or I would be killed,” narrated the lady who pleaded to keep her name under wraps’ 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 I began to raise alarm in vehicle calling for help”. She said her shout attracted the attention of a taxi driver who decided to give the gulf 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. “These two ladies were apprehended by the people who came to see what the trouble between the two taxis was and started to beat them when they heard what they had done to me”. The lady said; The suspects who were thoroughly beaten and stripped naked were later handed over to the police who later came to the scene. The ladies who 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 and have been in Calabar for the past two weeks in search of some Dollars and other foreign currencies from people trooping into the Cross River State Capital for the 2014 World Cup qualifier between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and Ethiopia. The gang which has been allegedly operating in the state for more than a fortnight ago was arrested with a Gulf car which was set ablaze by members of the public who thronged the scene. On their mode of operation, they said they always disguised as commercial taxi operators, with four of their members as passengers, shouting one chance and looking for an unsuspecting victim, who may have huge amount to attack. When contacted, the state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Hogan Bassey confirmed the trio were in police custody, saying they will 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. “Cross River State, 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 not prepared to compromise the crime free status of the state.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 10:26:14 +0000
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