About 200 residents in the Garu and Tempane districts of the Upper East Region were on Sunday’s dawn brutalized by a team of military personnel in what appears like a swoop.
About a week ago, some youth in Garu intercepted a V8 landcruiser with registration number GS 7520- 22 with more than 4 M 16 raffles bullies proof jackets and some ammunition embedded in it. Occupants of the said vehicle claimed to be national security operatives, they were taken to the Garu district police station where their identity were authenticated. The youth who remained skeptic, had a violent confrontation with the claimed national security officials.
Suspicion are rift that yesterday’s military brutalization is in retaliation of the confrontation.
District chief executive for Tempane, Issaka Anabida indicated that the soldiers stopped about 15 vehicles and started brutalizing the people and breaking into the homes of those who might have locked their rooms and were sleeping brutalized some of the people at their base in Bazua in the Binduri district.
He noted that several of the people had been hospitalized while 8 of the people had been airlifted to Accra by the soldiers for interrogation but residents do not still understand why the military and national security that have their bases in Bolgatanga and Bazua could not use the main Bolgatanga Bawku road and decided to use the North East stretch of the road and were even stranded at Garu with a V8 car which was having one number plate GS 7520- 22.
According to the Tempane DCE, of the four officials who were intercepted by the youth in a V8 car with some ammunition, two were national security and the other two were military officials.
“About 15 some are cargo trucks, some are Ammon they just raided the whole area some were in Tempane, some were in Garu and some were in Bugri so what they did was they entered inside the house and youth they get, they will bring him out and asked him to lay down so they gathered them that way and started beating when the day broke they did some screening and selected some people and took them based in Bazua so I followed there and when we got there, we talked to them, they started this screening they left 8 people and sent about 8 people to Accra through a military aircraft so the other eight people they took to Accra they are the people were still fight to be released “ he noted
Mr. Issaka Anabida also bemoaned that he the DCE and the regional minister were not aware of this plan by the military, he got calls from his people at 2 a.m. Sunday midnight that the military was brutalizing them so he pleaded with them to stop but they refused to listen to him because they claimed the two district assemblies failed to identify those who shot into the V8 car the two military officials and the two other national security officials who were intercepted by the youth.
“In Garu per the statistics, I got they are about one hundred and forty-something and in Tempane too about we had about fifty-something people but he is yet to get the full figure “
He however added that the steps DISEC and REGSEC are taking to ensure will not be made public but it’s rather a matter of negotiating with military to see how they would bring back.
Source: mywordfmonline.com/ Gaspard Ayuureneeya