A suspect accused of dispossessing people of their personal effects, especially mobile phones, was on Tuesday set ablaze by the residents of Obio Offot in Uyo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, just as a policeman saved another.
Local vigilantes had apprehended the petty thief saved by the policeman at about 11am after he snatched a phone and fled.
He ran into a ravine bordering Eka Street and the adjoining Asutan Street, also in Uyo, the state capital.
The suspect was reportedly dragged to one secluded compound by Ebong Street, where he was about to be lynched, but for the quick intervention of an armed policeman who rescued him from the mob and took him to the nearby ‘A’ Division Police Station in Uyo.
The other unlucky suspect was set ablaze at Obio Offot Community along Abak Road after stealing unspecified phones of members of the Island of Pamus Church, while members were fast asleep, and waiting for the early morning prayer and worship session.
One of the worshippers who identified herself as Aniebiet, recalled: “I don’t really know what happened.
“All of us were still fast asleep at the time the thief tiptoed late into the church and removed all the worshipers’ phones.
Also Read:
- Spokesperson of the Year: I’ll continue raising the bar – Soneye
- Reps postpone meeting with Ibas indefinitely following his request
- Davido releases 5th studio album titled ‘5ive’
- No Boko Haram suspects apprehended in Lagos – Police
- Student loan scheme and emerging sabotage, by Muiz Banire
“We only took a nap, so we can wake around 4am for the early morning prayer and worship session.
“To our surprise, when we woke up to prepare for the service, behold, we were amazed that we could not find our phones.
“When the Pastor came and heard our lamentations, he mounted the pulpit and took our cry to God, that we cannot be in His (God’s) house and something so sad like this happened.
“He vowed that God would not allow the thief to survive the next couple of hours.”
Our Correspondent gathered that the thief, said to have been terrorising the Obio Offot community and its environs, was caught about an hour later while trying to also steal at the neighbouring Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, as worshippers raised the alarm.
The locals, who had been on the manhunt for some time, following incessant cases of thefts, apprehended and later set the unnamed suspect ablaze after binding his hands behind his back.
However, the Akwa Ibom State Police Command has condemned extrajudicial killing of criminal suspects.
The Command’s Commissioner, CP Baba Azare, through the Police Public Relations Officer and a Deputy Superintendent of Police, Timfon John, maintained that the police has zero tolerance for crimes of any sort and warned that jungle justice has no place in the constitution.
John explained that members of the civil society have the right to apprehend criminal elements, but must hand the suspects over to the Police for diligent prosecution to avoid extrajudicial killing of innocent persons
Follow The Eagle Online Channel on WhatsApp
