Source: Daily Sun
Two female members of a robbery gang that had been terrorizing Iheorji axis of Aba in Abia State area have been lynched . It was gathered that angry residents of the area, last weekend, killed the two girls, whose robbery gang had been giving them sleepless nights. Sources told Daily Sun that two young women came in company with their male counterparts to rob that night, but unknown to them, youths of the area and the private security guards had laid ambush for them.
When the youths attacked them as they approached, the male gang members were said to have escaped leaving the two girls behind and they were lynched immediately.
Daily Sun checks revealed that armed robberies in the area had gone unchallenged due to poor road network that made it difficult for security personnel to access the place.
Due to the menace, residents of the area now live in fear and many of them have been forced to pass some nights inside the bush.
According to a resident, who would not want his name in print, for fear of attacks, no night passed without armed robbers operating in the area for at times, up to three hours unchallenged.
He recalled that in the early hours of Wednesday, last week, motorcycles as usual, invaded the area, broke into a building and shot sporadically, wounding a 15-year-old-boy in the process.
They were said to have robbed the occupants of the house and the neighbours of cash and other valuable items.
“The armed robbers operated for over three hours unchallenged and because of the gunshots we heard, we ran into the nearby bush where we stayed till morning and this has continued,” he said.
The following day, the robbers struck again and attacked a building not far from that of the previous night’s operation and wounded a teacher on the leg and he has been hospitalised.
“For over three weeks, we have not been sleeping in our houses because the robbers now come on daily basis and nobody is challenging them. We, on our own arranged for private security guards who we pay monthly, but the robbers overpowered them because of their superior fire power.”
The residents therefore, appealed to the state government to do something urgently to save residents of the area from the constant attacks of the armed robbers.
A senior police officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity queried, “How do you expect us to go into such area to checkmate the activities of criminals especially at night when none of the roads in the place you have mentioned, is motorable.”