Posted on: 05:55 Thu, 21 Jul 2016



Five suspected armed robbers, including a female said to be the leader of the gang, who engaged the police in Anambra State in a deadly gun battle, have been gunned down by the superior firepower of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), operatives, the State Police Command reports in a statement.

According to the State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ali Okechukwu, revealed that the suspects who were said to be very notorious and have been terrorising the state and other parts of the south-east, engaged the police in a fierce gun battle when operatives were trailing them following a tip off from an arrested robbery kingpin.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Hosea-Hassan Karma, revealed that the operation lasted all through Monday night till the early hours of Tuesday before the police overpowered the criminals and fell to the superior fire power of his men, while some of them still escaped.

“The deceased female suspect was the commander of the gang while their area of specialization included car snatching, armed robbery and kidnapping,” Okechukwu said.

According to the PPRO, a young girl from Akwa Ibom State who had gone to visit a man she had been dating on Facebook for three months without knowing he was one of the armed robbers, was also hit by bullets during the gun duel but was been taken to the hospital for treatment.

Anambra State is gradually becoming the bedrock of crime in Nigeria as no week passes without stories of reports of one such instance or the other.