It was a tale of woes as victims of violence in the hands of security agents, yesterday, narrated their ordeals to the judicial of inquiry investigating right abuses in Taraba State.
During the sitting of the panel at the Conference Hall of the Bureau for Local Governments and Chieftaincy Affairs in Jalingo, the audience was in tears as they listened to complaints of brutality by the police and other security agencies against innocent citizens in the North East state.
The sufferers, who are demanding millions of naira in compensation, also pleaded with the Justice Christopher Awubra-led team to ensure that their cases were fairly treated and the culprits brought to justice.
Wondering why a force, saddled with responsibility to maintain law and order in the society, derived pleasure in molesting those it was meant to protect, the complainants relieved how one 19-year-old Nasiru Inusa was allegedly killed by the police in Bali division.
One of the petitioners, Bello Chindo, claimed that they were “beaten up and arrested by men of the Nigerian Police Force from Bali division, led by the happy-trigger Divisional Police Officer (DPO)”, whom he insisted “shot Nasiru Inusa in the head that led to his instant death.”
Short of words for the ‘killing’ and their ‘unlawful arrest, detention and torture’, the claimants alleged that “the police took the corpse in their van to Bali police division, a situation that made it impossible for the family to know where he was buried.”
The police, according to the petitioners, eventually “returned and illegally searched the house after their infamous act of killing the deceased, but could not find anything incriminating.”
They went the extra length pleading with the investigating committee to compel the force “to show the family the exact place their son, Nasiru Inusa, was buried.”
On his part, counsel to the supplicants, Simon Joseph, urged the panel to declare the alleged killing and molestation as illegal. Pleading for an order compelling the police to show “where they buried Inusa to his people”, the lawyer also canvassed proper investigation and appropriate measures to address the “illegal burial of Nasiru Inusa, and bring perpetrators of this inhuman act to book.”
Admitting that the security outfit found nothing incriminating in the house, the Investigation Police Officer (IPO), Inspector Abubakar Ahmadu, said he was eventually ordered to release the arrested persons, but declined comments on the youthful Nigerian in question.
The other petitioners included Aishatu Ali, Hamisu Ibrahim, Shomboro Samuel and Okafor Sunday.
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