Police mourn death of three colleagues in Ekiti bank robbery

Ekiti State police Command on Tuesday expressed sadness over the death of three of police officers during a bank robbery that took place at Ijero Ekiti, Ekiti State, on Monday. During the bloody operation, three policemen and a civilian were killed by the dare-devil armed robbers, who invaded an old generation bank at about 6pm.

An eye-witness confirmed that the robbers, who blew the security door with explosive materials, came to the bank with an ambulance laced with a coffin carrying a large cache of rifles.

While speaking with journalists in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday, the Police Public Relations Officer, Ekiti command, Mr. Caleb Ikechukwu, said the families of the deceased would be contacted before publicly revealing their identities.

The police spokesman expressed sadness over the rampant bank robbery in recent time, urging the public to always provide them with information that could help them prevent attacks on people and institutions in the state.

“We are contacting their families to express our grief over the death.” Ihechukwu said. “The police will not be deterred or shy away from the responsibility of protecting lives and property of the people, no matter what happens. Our men are really working. We are stepping up our intelligence gathering mechanism with the public and other sister agencies to ensure that Ekiti is safe.

“We have even recovered the Toyota car that was stolen by the bandits during the robbery. The bandits abandoned the vehicle along Aramoko-Ijero road and fled into the bush upon realising that the police were closing in on them.

“We are not stopping at that; our men from the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) are combing the push.

We suspected they ran into. We are chasing them and the long arm of the law shall catch up with them.

“We are particularly pleased because members of the pubic are cooperating. They are giving us useful information that will automatically help us in tracking down the robbers.”