A policeman attached to a joint security team, a legal practitioner and his client have been gruesomely murdered by gunmen during two separate attacks in Anambra State.
LEADERSHIP learnt that the victims were murdered on Thursday at Nanka and Isuofia communities in Orumba-North local government area of the state.
Our correspondent gathered that the policeman, a member of a joint security team was murdered when assailants attacked a checkpoint in Isuofia, the home town of the state governor, Professor Chukwuma Soludo.
Spokesperson of the Anambra State Police Command (PPRO), SP Tochukwu Ikenga, said the gunmen engaged the policemen in a gun duel in the night attack, resulting in the killing of the policeman.
Two members of the criminal gang were also gunned down by the police due to the superior fire power of the security team.
SP Ikenga, who reacted to the development on Friday, revealed that an operational vehicle of the police team was destroyed in the attack.
He added that the police team also recovered a Toyota sienna bus belonging to the hoodlums after some of them had escaped with bullet injuries.
In another incident, earlier on the same day, a lawyer and his client were also gruesomely killed somewhere at Nanka as they were returning from the Ekwulobia High Court 2 where the lawyer secured bail for the client who was standing trial on murder charges.
The lawyer identified as Barrister Rolex, a former president-general of Aguleri town union in Anambra East local government area and his client were accosted by gun-wielding gunmen riding on a motorbike and were instantly killed.
Ikenga said a Toyota Camry car belonging to one of the victims was later recovered from the scene of the attack and that family members of the victims had already identified them as their relations.
The PPRO said the Commissioner of Police in the state, CP Ikioye Orutugu who believed the attacks were perpetrated by bandits, noted them as a “test of Ndi Anambra’s collective resolve to work with the security forces to dislodge and eliminate criminal elements in the state”.
He said CP Orutugu had led senior police officers to the scenes of the attacks for on-the-spot assessment, and has beefed up security in the areas.
Ikenga also disclosed that the CP has deployed detectives to smoke out perpetrators of the crimes to face the full weight of the law.
