The operatives of the Imo Police command, Tuesday, repelled an attack at the Njaba Police Station in Nnenasaa, when gunmen suspected to be members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)/Eastern Security Network came in their numbers and threw improvised explosive devices ( IEDs) and shot sporadically, attempting to gain entrance into the station.
In a press statement issued by the command’s Public Relations Officer, CSP Mike Abattam, said the police operatives of the division who positioned themselves strategically and professionally, engaged the hoodlums in a gun duel and in the process suppressed them, with a number of them sustaining varying degrees of bullet wounds.
“The hoodlums then retreated, running towards Njaba Bridge in a Sienna vehicle and were given a hot chase by the police operatives. Unfortunately for them, they ran into a detachment of the Army at Njaba Bridge, who engaged them in another gun battle. During the exchange of gun fire, the hoodlums suffered huge casualty which made them scamper for safety, running into the bush and abandoning their operational vehicle,” the statement said.
The command’s spokesman disclosed that an aggressive combing of the bush for the hoodlums was now ongoing to recover more arms and to arrest the fleeing suspects since it was certain that they did not go far because of the blood stains seen in the vehicle and on the ground in the bushes.
Items recovered include one pump action gun abandoned by one of the injured hoodlums and the Sienna vehicle used and abandoned, which was later towed to the station for further investigation.
