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Some frightened eyewitnesses have finally opened up about how a crack team of anti-robbery police squad officials from the Abia State Command worked hard to foil an attempt to rob a branch of an old-generation bank in Umuahia after a fierce gun battle with the daredevil robbers.
The operation was reportedly carried out by a four-member gang, according to the eyewitnesses.
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It was learnt that the armed robbers, on sighting the policemen, began to shoot sporadically as they made attempt to escape.
They were said to have abandoned their red-colour Corolla car, with Reg. No: LND 126 HL, and escaped in another car which had been snatched from an unsuspecting motorist due to pressure from the policemen.
One of the eyewitnesses, Yusuf Garba, a cosmetics dealer on Okpara Avenue said the operation happened at a time he was still displaying his wares between 9 am and 10 am.
Garba, who spoke to Newsmen said that the incident caused a serious stampede residents and traders in the area, including passersby, “ran helter skelter” for their lives.
He said that at the end of the gun duel between the police and robbery suspects, three persons, including a policeman at the bank, sustained bullet wounds.
Another eyewitness and a dairy seller in the area, Mr Iheanacho Agubuche, identified one of his co-dairy seller and a passersby as those hit by stray bullets.
Agubuche said that the victims were immediately rushed to the nearby Federal Medical Centre for medical attention.
“We are praying that they would survive from the bullet wounds,” he said.
The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in the state, SP Geoffrey Ogbonna, confirmed the incident to newsmen.
Ogbonna said that the command got the information that there was an attempt to rob a bank situated on Bank Road in the capital city.
He said that the command “immediately dispatched an anti-robbery squad to the scene and they succeeded in foiling the robbery attempt”.
