24th April, 2017
The Nasarawa State Police command says it has arrested 113 persons suspected to have committed various offences in the past one month.
Mr Kennedy Idirisu, the Police Public Relations Officer, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lafia that the offences ranged from armed robbery, murder, kidnapping and cattle rustling.
Idirisu said that arms and ammunition, including four AK 49 and three AK 47 rifles, as well as 178 rounds of 7.65mm live ammunition were recovered from the suspects.
Other items recovered from the bandits included 500 rustled cows, 13 motorcycles and N8.9 million fake currency.
Idirisu attributed the feat to the operational strategies adopted by the command as well as the cooperation with other security agencies and community stakeholders.
On the increasing cases of kidnapping in some parts of the state, the command’s spokesman said that measures had been adopted to check the trend, and called for logistics support from government.
He said that special attention was being paid to tackling criminal activities along Akwanga-Gudi-Kokona-Keffi road, and regretted that many lives had been lost to attacks along that route.
“The road in that axis has a forest stretching more than 20 kilometres; intelligence reports indicate that the criminals seem to be very conversant with the areas. They also appear well trained and equipped with sophisticated weapons,” he said.
He said that the police had deployed some patrol vehicles to the route, but that more vehicles were needed to cover the area.
“From our findings, these criminals might not even be Nigerians given their mode of operation and the arms they bear,’’ he said.
Idirisu said that the command was considering aerial surveillance to check the excesses of the criminals terrorising the area.