Soldiers assault police officer for wearing ‘military shorts’ at Bolgatanga

The timely intervention of some top security officers averted a possible reprisal attack from the police in the Upper East Regional capital, Bolgatanga, after an alleged attack on a police officer on Sunday by some soldiers stationed at Atulbabisi, a suburb of the Bolgatanga municipality.

The assault occurred when some soldiers confronted the policeman and ordered him to remove his military shorts.

Witnesses say the soldiers, unsatisfied with the response from the police officer after the order, pounced on him and physically assaulted him.

The assault left the police officer (name withheld) with some bruises and lacerations on his back, waist and feet.

Narrating his ordeal to Atinka News, he said: "I went to town to buy something in their military shorts because I had washed and had nothing to wear… So I was on phone near their base when one of them approached me and asked whether I was one of them, so I told him I was a police officer and he asked me to go home and remove it."

He continued: “All of sudden, some of his colleagues pounced on me and started beating me, you can even see how my back, waist and legs have been lacerated …my other colleague with me had to run away ".

Atinka News has, however, gathered that upon the hint that a police officer was allegedly manhandled by the military, men from the Bolgatanga Regional Police command massed up in defense of their own; chanting war songs, a possible sign of a reprisal attack.

The timely intervention of authorities has since calmed tensions on both sides. Business activities at Atulbabisi which were briefly disrupted, have all returned to normalcy.