Islamic Movement of Nigeria fondly referred to as Shi’ites on Sunday attacked a police checkpoint in Wuse area of the FCT and killed three policemen. They also burnt three police patrol vehicles, while two policemen were reportedly unconscious in an Abuja hospital.
The FCT Command’s Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) SP Josephine Adeh, who confirmed the incident in a statement said that
the attack was unprovoked as the police were taken unawares by the Shit’ites members who reportedly carried out the attack with dangerous weapons including knives, machetes, locally improvised explosives and other weapons.
“The FCT Police Command wishes to confirm an unprovoked attack by the proscribed Islamic Movement of Nigeria, popularly known as the ‘Shi’ite’ group, on some personnel of the Nigeria Police Force attached to FCT Command at Wuse Junction by traffic light, where two police personnel were killed, three left unconscious in the hospital, and three police patrol vehicles set ablaze,” the PPRO said.
“The proscribed organisation attacked the police checkpoint unprovoked, wielding machetes, improvised explosive devices (locally made bombs in bottles with kerosene) and knives,” the PPRO added.
Sheikh Sidi Munir Mainasara Sokoto who claimed to be the spokesman of the group, in a statement, however, said that the Shi’ites were conducting their Arba’een Symbolic Trek at Wuse District in Abuja when the incident took place.
He also claimed that it was the police that first attacked them and that they (the Shit’ites), too, suffered casualties.
The police, however, confirmed that several arrests had been made and normalcy had been restored to the area.
As at the time of filing this report, the reasons for the attack was not confirmed; neither did the police nor anybody comment on the chances of the survival of the unconscious policemen in the hospital.
The FCT Commissioner of Police FCT, CP Benneth Igweh, who condemned the attack, however, promised to bring the culprits to book.
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