Twelve persons who were travelling from Zaria local government area of Kaduna State to Qua’an Pan in Plateau State were attacked and killed by hoodlums in Mangu local government area of Plateau State on Friday.
Some other travellers sustained injuries and were rushed to hospital in Mangu.
Our correspondent gathered that over 18 travellers including men, women and children travelling in an 18-seater bus belonging to the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria were attacked by the hoodlums around 8pm on Friday.
They were heading to Qua’an Pan to attend a wedding.
The driver of the bus, an ABU staff member, was killed in the attack. The ABU’s director public affairs, Malam Auwalu Umar, said the occupants were not staff of the university except the driver, Mallam Bashir Abdullahi,
who worked with the department of physics in the university. He applied for the bus to attend a wedding with his family members in Jos and the bus was approved for him.
He said they missed their way in Plateau and the incident happened. While condemning the attack, he prayed for the repose of the souls of the deceased and urged necessary actions to prevent future occurrence.
The chief imam of Jama’atu Izalatil Bid’a Wa’ikamatis Sunnah (JIBWIS) in Mangu local government area of Plateau State, Sheikh Suleiman Haruna, said corpses of the victims were deposited at the Mangu General Hospital.
“There were over 20 travellers in the bus. Now we have eight corpses in the hospital. We have asked security personnel to help recover the remaining four bodies. We were together with the chairman of Mangu LGA and he has been up and doing on the matter,” he said.
Ibrahim Umar, one of the survivors, said, “We were heading to Qua’an Pan to attend the wedding ceremony of our brother when we missed the road.
“We stopped and asked some people for direction, but before we knew it, they surrounded the vehicle and killed 12 people. They started beating and attacking us with dangerous weapons. The hoodlums killed the driver first and attacked others. They burned the bus with the corpses inside. We are now in hospital receiving treatment,” the survivor narrated.
Plateau police spokesman, DSP Alfred Alabo, when contacted, said the command was aware of the incident but would issue a formal statement after ascertaining the true situation.
