Aba Residents At War With Bag Snatching Thieves, Kill Three In Broad Daylight

Mob action

By Chidi Okenwa

What has become a routine for dare-devil bag snatching thieves in recent time, has led to the lynching of three by angry mob at Aba, the commercial city of Abia State on Wednesday morning.

Abia Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu

While two of the suspects were killed by forcefully driving six inches nails in their head, another one was set ablaze with a commercial tricycle, popularly known in local parlance as Keke NAPEP.

AtlanticNewsonline gathered that the incident which happened in front of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, along Azikiwe Road, Aba, had irked road users, as many women and men complained of having their belongings, especially handbags containing large sums of money and cell phones among others, snatched by young men operating either as commercial motorcyclists or Keke NAPEP operators.

A witness, who spoke on the condition of ananymity said the young men from a suburb of the town, usually targeted commuters and other road users along the Azikiwe/Asa, Ochefu and Ama Ogbonna areas of the town, whose belongings they seize or snatch, with their tricycles in motion.

He said attempts by the victims to fight back were always resisted by the hoodlums who either pushed them out of the moving tricycles or beat them into submission and abandoning them, thereafter.

It was gathered that luck ran out on the three thieves after their tricycle was blocked by an oncoming Toyota Hiace bus otherwise known as “Hummer Bus that heard distress shouts from their pursuers.”

The crowd had then descended on them, inflicting severe injuries and piercing heads of two of them with long nails, while the third person and their tricycle were set ablaze.

When AtlanticNewsonline visited the scene, the decomposing, swollen body of one of the suspects was seen on the road, though some people said to be their friends had allegedly taken those of the other two away to an unknown destinations possibly for burial.

Effort to reach the spokesman of Abia State Police Command in Umuahia was unsuccessful as at time of filing this report.

Written by: Frank Oshanugor

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