Ogbonnaya Ikokwu, Umuahia
OPERATIVES of the Police Special
Anti-Robbery Squad, Obehie Division, Abia State, have arrested three
persons for allegedly manufacturing and selling guns.
The suspects; Allwell Anyanwu, Udo
Nwanmuo and Ejiofor Kanu, said to be natives of Ukwa West Council Area
of the state, were arrested at their different villages by the police
following a tip-off.
Some items recovered from the suspects included assembled guns, oxygen gas cylinder, pipes of various sizes and a hammer.
It was gathered that the suspects had been in the business for over 10 years.
While fielding questions from
journalists, the suspects admitted that they did not have the licence to
manufacture guns, but insisted that they sold guns to hunters in the
area.
They claimed that their clients never used the guns for robbery.
When contacted the State Commissioner of
Police, Joshak Habila, who commended men of the SARS for their prompt
response, stressed that the lives and property of people in the area and
environs would have been in danger if the weapons were not recovered
from the suspects.
“We may call them gun runners, but it
was in our effort to get to some of those that perpetrate crime in the
state that we ventured into a factory where the hoodlums claimed to be
producing guns for hunting alone.
“However, we discovered that they were
locally made pistols that can carry live ammunition and the elderly man
there, between 78 to 80 years agreed that he had been giving out the
pistols to people.
“You can imagine how many people who
have been patronizing them and how many people who would have been
gunned down through that process.
“Again, a shot from a cartridge can damage the internal organs leading to the death of an individual,” Habila said.
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