Outrage in Enugu as police demands N50,000 from robbery victims

The police in Enugu State have received heavy knocks over alleged demand of the sum of N50,000 from some robbery victims in the State.

Residents of Uwani, in Enugu, the state capital, were on Wednesday night robbed by a three-man gang.
However, luck ran out of one of the members of the gang, as a mob chased after them, following shouts of help from the victims.

One of the suspects was said to have been caught by the mob, with a laptop and mobile phones stolen from the victims recovered from him.
According to our source, “the mob descended on him and beat him to stupor. The police from Uwani Division later came and took him.

“However, the matter took another dimension as the police started demanding money from the victims.”

One of the victims told our correspondent that, “The policemen earlier collected N15,000 from us after taking our statement.

“After that, they started again demanding N50,000 from us. They said the money will be used in taking care of medical bills of the armed robbery suspect.

“They threatened that if we don’t bring the money, we will go to prison should anything happen to the robbery suspect.

“As I speak to you, some of our items have not been recovered. We were severely macheted by the robbers and right now, nobody is talking about how we will be treated.”

When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, SP Ebere Amaraizu said he would get back but was yet to do so several hours after.

Text message sent to him was also not responded to.

Meanwhile, a brother to one of the victims said, “They are being held right now at the Uwani Police Division for failing to bring the N50,000.

“We are calling on the police hierarchy, the Enugu State Government and Civil Society Organizations to come to their rescue.”