Our lives are in danger - Aveyime police

Police officers stationed at Aveyime in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region are living in fear following persistence death and verbal threats by some residents of the area.

The latest attack on the officers and their families was as a result of a riot involving them and the residents which led to the untimely death of a motorcycle rider.

The youth have since blamed the police for the untimely death of the motorcycle rider.

According to the police, some of their colleagues who reside outside the district barracks are the most vulnerable.

Some of them have had their pigs killed and families threatened.

Speaking in an interview with Weekend Today at Aveyime last Tuesday scores of officers who spoke on condition of anonymity lamented that they were currently living in fear due to the spate of attacks on them and their families.

“If the residents come to our office to report criminal cases or other equally important cases we feel reluctant to respond because we are afraid they will attack us,” an officer told Weekend Today.

According to the law enforcers, they have now resorted to daily prayers for God’s intervention.

They explained that the situation was so pervasive that they are unable to carry out their duties effectively, which has led to the increase in crimes within the catchment area.

Nonetheless, they blamed the chiefs and opinion leaders in Battor and Aveyime communities of being behind the high incidence of hooliganism in their areas.

“The chiefs and traditional leaders in these communities are not helping matters at all. Sometimes they openly support these hooligans,” an officer alleged.

On 11th August, 2107 an Okada rider and some angry indigenes embarked on a violent demonstration at the premises of the Aveyime police station, threatening to deal with police officers.

They shattered windscreens of police vehicles which were parked at the station and made away with 18 unregistered motorbikes which had been seized by the police officers.

The incident led to the death of the motor rider after he was chased by a police Navara Pick-up.

Meanwhile, Weekend Today has been reliably informed that the deceased will be buried today (Friday, Nov., 7, 2017) which the police fear there could be reprisal attacks on them by the youth in the area.

But the North Tongu District Chief Executive, Mr Richard Collins Arku, in an interview called on residents to be law-abiding in the wake of the sad incident.