The Special Anti Robbery Squad in Edo State on Friday recovered a vehicle belonging to the state government from a two-man robbery gang after a shootout which left a gangmember near dead in Ekpoma.
One of the robbers was shot during the exchange of fire. His still-breathing body was put on display before newmen at a briefing in the state police headquarters.
The snatched car, with registration number EDGH 131, attached to a special adviser to the state government was taken from a driver in the state capital Benin City after he was held up at gunpoint by the two-man gang.
Minutes after the car was snatched, radio messages went out over SARS’s information network, according to police public relations officer ASP Peter Ogboi who briefed newsmen on the incident. Using the information, a SARS unit intercepted the grey Toyota Corolla at the university town of Ekpoma, some 45 minutes outside the state capital.
One gangmember escaped in the shootout but sustained an injury, security officials believe.
At the briefing, police alerted residents around the university town of Ekpoma, especially hospitals, to look out for any individual with fresh bullet wounds.
The wounded man, who may have been got because he’d been driving the snatched car and was still breathing throughout the display before newsmen, had no weapon on him. Police PRO said the police had “reason to believe the man who escaped went with the arms.”
The police also says it suspects the gang includes a thried man, ostensibly resident outside the country and believed to have started the gang and continues to arm it, and to whom certain remissions are still made by his two counterparts in the city.
The police confirmed to newsmen that investigations will continue until both men still at large, including the wounded escapee for whom the police has begun a manhunt, are brought to book.
There has been no statement yet from the Government House regarding the recovered car.
