By Ikhili Monday Ebalu, Benin City
Edo State Commissioner of Police, CP Johnson Kokumo on Wednesday, paraded a gang of criminal suspects who specialized in manufacturing bombs in Okpilla, Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State.
The police also recovered some Improvised Explosive Devices from the suspects.
Parading the suspect at the state police command in Benin City, Kokumo said one of the IEDs exploded and severed the lower limbs of one of the suspects, Sanusi who later died as a result of the injuries sustained.
He said the death of Sanusi caused panic and pandemonium in the areas.
According to him “the Edo State Police Command in its effort to ensure peace and security in the state, arrested a number of a criminal gang engaged in unwholesome activities of the assemblage of components of Improvised Explosive Device IEDs on 15 January, 2018 in Okugbe area near Iddo Okpilla.
“On the day in question, one of the IEDs in the gang’s arsenal exploded and severed one of the lower limbs of one of its members named Sanusi, other name unknown and died instantly” he said.
CP Kokumo said the gang leader, Idris Hassa Abdulmalik an indigene of Kogi State is on the run while other gang member, Idris Ibrahim, 22, and two females, Zainab Ibrahim and Oyeza Abdul all of Kogi State were arrested.
One of the suspects paraded by the Police, Idris Ibrahim while narrating his involvement in the crime said, Idris Hassa Abdulmalik told him that he was a transporter and that he got to know that he was into bomb making four weeks ago.
“He told me that he was a driver and I usually see him transporting passengers from Okpilla to Abuja.
“He told me that the car he uses belonged to someone else but I just found out from his wife that the car belongs to him.
“I got to know that he was into bomb making four weeks ago as he does not assemble them at home.
“So when i discovered that he was into bomb making, that was when i decided to look for a place to rent a shop where i can carry out my warding business”, he said.
Mrs. Oyeza Abdul whose husband is still at large said when she confronted her husband with the question of who owns the bombs; she said he told her that they belonged to his friends.
She admitted that her husband had a secret room
Items recovered from the suspects were one rocket propelled grenade without the launcher, one beretta pistol No.53101466 with seven rounds of 9mm live ammunition, two riot gunners, four smoke pistols, twenty three empty fire extinguishers cylinders.
Others were eighteen plastic bottles of prepared borne IEDs, twenty one expended smoke cartridges, one pair of scissors, twenty small cans of assorted chemicals, five 500ml bottles of highly inflammable chemicals and others.
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