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A team of soldiers and other security forces were on Saturday dispatched to invade a dreaded shrine in Ebonyi State were they arrested several suspects believed to have spearheaded the Ezza-Effium violence that has claimed many lives and property and put the state on edge.
According to security sources, the breached shrine, used to serve as a protective haven for the masterminds of the Ezza-Effium crisis, now being investigated by the government to determine whether it was induced by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra or other violent elements bent on disrupting public peace and order.
Read Also: We Arrested 247 Suspects In Ebonyi In 2020 — NDLEA
The sting operation, according eyewitnesses, was carried out by a team comprising of the Department of State Services and the the Nigerian Army in the early hours of Friday at Effium Ohaukwu Local Government Area of Ebonyi and resulted in the hauling of high caliber arms and ammunition.
A top official, who was involved in the sting operation listed the weapons recovered from the suspects, who are now in custody, to include: AK-47 rifle, one G3 rifle, one pump action rifle, one double-barreled Dane gun, five single-barreled guns, two locally made pistols, one locally-made revolver pistol and 592 different calibers of ammunition including those for General Machine Guns and Ak-47 rifles.
The Spokesman for the DSS, Dr. Peter Afunanya, neither confirmed nor denied the arrests and the raid on the dreaded shrine, which have however excited the traumatized members of the Ezza-Effium community, who have been under siege for some time now.
Afunanya, who promised to call our correspondent back for information on the situation, however, said that there was nothing wrong in the joint operations between the army and the DSS but declined to give further details.
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