For the second time in 14 years, the military on Tuesday invaded Zaki Biam, Benue State, following the killing of a soldier and a riot police officer in the town by armed robbers.
Sources said that the victims were returning from their duty post at dawn when they ran into a roadblock mounted by an armed robbery gang at a popular ‘Y’ Junction in Zaki Biam.
The robbers opened fire on them and killed them.
According to eyewitness accounts, the robbers came in a Toyota car and started shooting sporadically to scare residents, robbed people of a large sum of money before leaving the town through Kassar Road.
However, as a result of the impending invasion of the area by the army, our correspondent reports that most shops owners, schools, filling stations were shut in Zaki Biam, thus causing tension in the area.
The eyewitness said as a result of the killing of the army officer, dozens of armed military personnel were Tuesday deployed in a fully loaded lorry from Makurdi, the state capital, to the area, a development which brought the memory of the 2001 army invasion of the town.
In 2001, a similar incidence occurred when soldiers were said to have been killed in the area, thereby prompting the invasion of the town and other surrounding villages by the military which killed scores of innocent people and destroyed property.
Spokesman of the state’s police command, Austin Ezeani, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), who confirmed the incident, said the deceased officers were members of ‘Operation Zelda’, a special squad comprising mainly the army and riot policemen in the state.
According to Ezeani, those killed included a police sergeant attached to 13 MOPOL Unit in Makurdi, while his soldier counterpart, a Lance Corporal, who is of 72 Special Battalion Makurdi, died in the ambush by the robbers who opened fire on them about 6a.m. Tuesday.
The police spokesman added that the deceased security officers were actually part of the team trying to respond to a distress call by some victims of the robbers before they ran into the ambush.
Ezeani said the police had already started getting vital information from the area and assured the people that soon some arrests would be made.
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