Twenty-two-year-old Rekiyat Yusuf was until her death a fresh graduate from police college. She was posted to the Isanlu station in May and yet to collect her first salary before she was brutally killed in her prime by the robbers.
A cousin to the deceased who preferred to be identified only as Stella, who operates a restaurant within the town, said she slept on a long bench in her shop when she was jolted from sleep at 3.45 pm by bullet sounds.
She stated, “The effect of a pill I took the previous night made me fall asleep and then I started hearing of gunshots in what appeared to be a dream. At first, I thought it was fireworks. I rose up in my oblivious state and saw a man approaching my shop. I started shivering because the person wore a mask. He spoke in Pidgin English to me, ordering me to run as fast as I could. I came out of the shop and started walking towards the palace. I could not even run. I just walked briskly away. That was when I discovered that those in the market behind my shop had all run away. I guessed I slept so deeply. It was later that I recalled that the masked man was one of the robbers. The place was close to the attack area.’’
She said when everywhere was calm and she returned to her shop, she saw that her purse which dropped on the floor beside her shop when she walked away was picked and thrown into her shop by the masked man. Stella added that the two doors leading to her shop were fastened and the man took nothing away from there.
But Stella was to later discover that despite the pleasant attitude of the masked man to her, they had earlier killed her cousin, Rekiyat, when they attacked the police station.