Three police officers who reportedly went firing bullets and beating residents after a drinking tour of the Upper East regional capital, Bolgatanga, have had a nurse pull them by their testicles for pulling her by the hair.
The law enforcers, according to supposed eyewitnesses, had quaffed a lot of beer at a pub at Yikene, a community along the Bolgatanga-Navrongo Highway, before they launched a sudden attack on an elderly man they spotted clearing some weeds by the roadside.
Two people who came to the old man’s rescue got their share of the severe pounding. Another man, who dared to question the alleged misconduct, vanished immediately from the scene after one of the officers stood unnoticed behind him and, using both hands, slapped him in the ears from the back. The man took off without a word and without a trace.
They also accosted a nurse and seized her mobile phone for allegedly trying to use the device to capture the brutalities on video. Highly angered by the alleged attempt to film the scene, the officers pulled the nurse by the hair and barked insults at her. Whilst struggling to free her hair, she explained she only pulled out her phone to receive a call. But the men, still ruffling her hairdo barbarously, insisted she was trying to take a video footage of the assault. She managed to break free after she grabbed hold of her assailants’ testicles all of a sudden, pulling their balls with ‘maximum force’ in self-defence.
“They moved from a drinking spot around Millar University across the road to a shop where some people are selling building materials and pounced on them for trying to find out why they were beating the old man. They removed pistols and shot at the ground, two times. A young man who tried to pick the empty shells was also beaten. They came with an unregistered corolla. One was in uniform, another one in a khaki overall and the third one was in mufti,” recounted a man who said he saw it all.
Nurse detained as residents storm police station
The officers left the area soon after the nurse had cut loose from them. Minutes later, they resurfaced at another bar within the same area, reportedly using a police-patrol pickup without a registration number.
They recaptured the nurse and arrested the young man who had attempted to pick up the empty shells and, amid protests by residents around the troubled spot, drove them to the Bolgatanga Police Station. The young man was locked behind bars and the nurse detained behind the counter.
A crowd of people from Yikene massed up in front of the police station Thursday night, demanding an explanation for the arrests. Authorities of the Bolgatanga Municipal Health Directorate also were at the station and met with some senior police ranks to ascertain the reason for the arrest of their staff.
“I entered and explained things to the Crime Officer. He said they should bring the two of them (the nurse and the man). When they brought them inside the Crime Officer’s office, he invited the policemen who [brutalised] them. The policemen who did the act did not allow the nurse to talk. They were insulting the nurse. The whole place was noisy. When I asked what operation they were doing at Yikene and said it was dangerous for policemen to be drunk and hold guns, the same police officers told me I was stupid,” the Assemblyman for Yikene, Issaka Nsoh, told Starr News.
He added: “Some senior health staff told me to leave it there. Someone asked if the case had ended there like that. Then, one of the corporals came out trying to attack the one who asked if the case had ended just like that. That created some disturbances. They did not give us any reason why they arrested them. They said we would hear from them. I told my people we should go. So, we left the place.”
Our men were not drunk- Commander
Meanwhile, the police have rubbished the agitators’ claims, describing them as radically false. The Upper East Regional Motor Transport and Traffic Department (MTTD) Commander, DSP Williams Kpormegbe, said the nurse pulled the officers’ testicles only because they asked her to delete the snapshots she took without their consent.
“Nobody came here and reported that the policemen had beaten them. Nobody came here. What happened actually was that the policemen were on patrol duty. Whilst they were going, they saw some people gathered around. They stopped and asked them what was happening. And the people were annoyed, saying it’s not their job to come and ask them what they were doing there. They started arguing with the policemen, accusing them and making all sorts of statements. Then, somebody who was just having a shop nearby came with a hammer to attack the policemen. As they were arguing, there was a lady who was taking shots of them.
“When they (the police officers) asked the lady why she was taking shots of them, the woman held the testicles of one of the policemen. Then, the policeman held the hair. When the reinforcement team came, they took the one with the hammer together with the woman to the police station. There was no issue of the policemen beating people. And if the policemen were truly drunk, they would not fire bullets at the ground as the people claimed. A drunken person who has a gun is rather more likely to direct the gun at his attacker and not shoot at the ground. The hammer was brought to the police station. It is total fabrication,” DSP Kpormegbe, who is also acting as the Bolgatanga Municipal Police Commander, told Starr News.
When Starr News contacted the Assemblyman of Yikene for a second time, he insisted his people were brutalised. “The people they beat are still alive. That is why we went and reported at the police station. The truth will come out,” he retorted.
