ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi
The mother of one of the two suspected chicken thieves allegedly beaten to death by the Township Divisional Police officer Bauchi State Command, is demanding justice for her son.
The woman, Hajara Ismail, said she was devastated when policemen brought the corpse of her son and dumped it in her house.
NATIONAL ACCORD had reported that Prison Inmate Development Initiative (PIDI-Nigeria), a Rights Group, had petitioned the Bauchi State Commissioner of Police, Lawal Jimeta, accusing the Divisional Police Officer, Township Police Station, for allegedly torturing three suspects which left two of them dead while the third was critically lying in the hospital.
The Rights Group said the suspects were alleged to have stolen some chickens belonging to a retired Police Officer at the Doya area of Bauchi metropolis.
Speaking with journalists at the NUJ Secretariat in Bauchi on Wednesday, while narrating how her son, Ibrahim Kampanlala, was brought home dead in a Police Hilux, the bereaved woman denied allegations that her son was a thief.
She said: “The DPO and his Policeman who brought son’s body, took him from the car and dumped him on the ground. He fell on his neck and that time, unknown to us, he had already died.
“I don’t know what my son did to the police. When police came, they entered our house and asked some boys to carry him and they asked them to dump him for me inside the house.
“Then, the DPO said, ‘here’s the corpse of your son, he’s a robber, we arrested him,’ then he turned and left and he turned again and said we were not the people who did this to him, we too picked him like that and we brought him to you.” Then, we picked him and put him inside the room and he never moved, he had died.”
The bereaved mother who said her son’s father was not at home when they brought Ibrahim’s corpse, stated that she could not control her tears.
“His father was sick and I called him to come home quickly and go inside and see Ibrahim because he was dead. He then asked me what had happened and I told him all that happened and what I heard.
“I told him that some Policemen brought him and dumped him in the house but I don’t know what he did to them. I told him that they just came and dumped him and most of us in the house at the time were women and when people saw them on their uniforms, people were just running away.
“He was 30 years old. He wasn’t married yet. Anytime I talked about marriage with him, he’d tell me that he won’t get married now until he helps us and get our own personal house,” the 53-year old woman said as she broke down in tears.
The Bauchi State’s Public Relations Officer of the Bauchi state Command, Ahmed Wakil, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, confirmed to journalists that the Commissioner of police has ordered for full investigation of the incidence.
According to him, the CP directed that all those involved will be made to face the full wrath of the law.
