Several youth of Boase in the Upper West Denkyira district of the Central region have been rounded up by uniformed military men who have stormed the town over the killing of an officer, Captain Maxwell Mahama, by indegenes of the mining community.
According to an army statement, about 35 troops are currently in the town to unravel the circumstances surrounding the mob killing of the young officer.
The youth are being held for their alleged involvement in the murder of the soldier.
Mahama was lynched by residents on suspicion of being an armed robber. The Captain was a military officer with the 5th Infantry Batallion (5BN) at Burma Camp in Accra but on detachment duties at the Denkyira Boase of the Central region.
Captain Mahama who is the commander of the area military detachment, according to his subordinates, was seen jogging along the main road and as he stopped by to ask some women for directions, the women saw a pistol on him.
The women who were alarmed by the discovery of the pistol on Captain Mahama mistook him for an armed robber thereby alerting their assembly member who allegedly organised some men to lynch him and even burnt him in the process.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson of the Ghana Armed Forces Col. Aggrey Quarshie told Morning Starr the military will be professional about their investigations and will not maltreat civilians.
“We are not going to expect that they [troops] will go and be attacking the community, no…they are going there to protect the Chief of Army Staff,” he said.
“We will leave the security agencies that are responsible for investigating such things to do that and we hope that all the culprits will be picked up and brought to book. So we expect the community members to help us arrest all the culprits,” Col. Quarshie stated.
