Brother of the illegal miner shot dead by the anti-galamsey taskforce has denied claims by the force that its members were attacked when they stormed a mining site at Wawase in the Ashanti region.
The 31-year-old Owusu Asante met his untimely death Sunday after members of the task-force code named ‘Operation Vanguard’ return fire when the miners at the site pelted stones and fired shots at them.
“We are in the Ashanti region to carry out His Excellency President Akufo-Addo’s initiative against galamsey. Today [Sunday], our personnel from Ashanti region on patrols around Wawase area chanced upon galamseyers who threw stones at them and fired gunshots.
“So the task-force fired warning shots to scare them away. After everything, we cordon the area for a search. After the search, one person with a gunshot wound was found. He was given first aid and rushed to AGA Hospital and he was pronounced dead at the hospital,” the Public Relations Officer of the task-force, MaJ. Gariba Pabi told Starr News.
The brother of the deceased, however, dismissed the account of Maj. Pabi and the police as false.
“I am surprised the police is saying this. I am told they [illegal miners] did not do anything to provoke the taskforce… no one among them owns a gun so why are they saying that they shot at them?” he told Starr News.
According to him, his late brother “is not an aggressive person and he is very calm and very hard working; he was not involved in any pelting of stones.”
