SOME UNIDENTIFIED gun-wielding persons suspected to be land-guards, at about 10:00pm last Sunday, reportedly opened fired on some innocent civilians at Prampram, leaving about 24 of them with various degrees of injury.
The unidentified suspects, numbering about eight, were said to have fled the scene in three separate vehicles soon after firing so as to avoid arrest by the local police.
The whole incident began when an unknown man allegedly drove his car to a shrine in the area and started playing loud music.
His action, according DAILY GUIDE’s source in the area, did not go down well with residents of the area, especially since a ban had been imposed on noise making and drumming in the area by its traditional council as part of its traditional rituals towards the celebration of Homowo.
The source said that at about 8:30pm on Sunday, the unknown man parked his car in front of the shrine and after a while turned up the volume of the music playing in his car. So loud was the music that it attracted the attention of everybody present, including some young men who had been tasked to ensure the ban.
The enforcers, unhappy about the situation, confronted him and for unknown reasons, the man was alleged to have slapped one of them, leading to a fight.
A few minutes after the fight, a friend of the unknown man emerged from nowhere in a car, pulled out a pistol and opened fire, causing fear and panic amongst eyewitnesses and members of the task force.
A third vehicle later arrived at the scene with about six passengers. The suspects, believed to be land-guards, reportedly pulled out pump action guns and joined the earlier group to shoot at those present.
However, realizing that the police had been notified, the suspects quickly fled the scene in three separate vehicles.
The police reinforcement team from the Tema Regional Police Command however arrived at the scene late.
The police team, according to a source, helped to convey the injured persons to the Tema General Hospital for treatment.
DCOP Maxwell Atingane, the Tema Regional Police Commander who on Monday visited the scene, sounded a stern warning to persons who paraded themselves as land-guards, warning them that anyone arrested would be dealt with.
He indicated that names of the suspected land-guards had been made available to the police and assured that his outfit was doing everything possible to apprehend them.
When DAILY GUIDE visited the Emergency Unit of the Tema General Hospital (TGH) yesterday, a health personnel on duty said about 10 victims with gunshot injuries were rushed to the unit at about 11:00pm on Sunday.
The report received from the victims was that some unidentified persons suddenly fired gun shots into a crowd after a fight broke out between some unknown persons and some youth of the area.
The health personnel explained that the few health personnel on duty at the time had to work very hard to remove pellets from the scrotum, feet and arms of some male victims.
“Except one female whose condition was critical and so we had to admit her, the rest were discharged on Monday morning. Nobody died,” the personnel noted.
One of the victims who only mentioned her name as Lillian, currently on admission at the health facility, said she was heading towards her room when the incident happened.
She alleged that she saw a man get out of a car with a gun, after which she heard him instruct some gun-wielding young men to open fire on them. According to her, she did not remember what happened next as she woke up only to find herself in a hospital bed.
She told DAILY GUIDE that she sustained gunshot wounds on her chest, lower abdomen and arm.
She appealed to the police to ensure that the perpetrators were arrested and punished. Other injured persons who were rushed to other medical facilities, including the Korle- Bu Teaching Hospital and 37 Military Hospital, have been treated and discharged.
