A SUSPECTED member of a five-man robbery gang was on
Wednesday burnt to death by residents of Calabar, Cross River State.
four members of his gang were caught in the act, attempting to break into a
multipurpose shop on IBB Way in the capital city.
The gang was said
to have terrorised shop owners and traders at the nearby Akim market.
Eye witnesses said
that neighbours and onlookers braved the odds and
confronted the
gang. In the melee, four of the suspects fled.
According to a
student of the International Institute of Journalism who said he was passing by
when the suspect was about to be lynched, the burnt suspect attempted to escape.
He struggled to
free himself from the mob but he was overpowered and sprayed with petrol and
burnt.
The student said
that he informed the state mobile security outfit, the Quick Response Squad, as
the mob was about to set the suspect ablaze. Before help could come from the
QRS, the suspect had been beaten to a pulp, sprayed with petrol and burnt.
One of the shop
owners expressed joy at the timely and swift intervention of the mob, saying
that her life would have been at risk if help had not come from the neighbours.
The Public
Relations Officer of the state police command, John Umoh, told journalists that
he was yet to receive information about the death of the suspect.
Last month, the
Commissioner of Police in the state, Osita Ezechukwu displayed large amount of
bullets, guns, charms, human skulls and machetes that were recovered from
suspected armed robbers, and warned that it was no longer business as usual for
cultists, criminals and armed robbers in the state.
