The Kaduna state police command on Tuesday arrested one Alhaji Musa Imam who raised a false alarm at the Kawo flyover in Kaduna that resulted in the lynching of three persons on Monday who were mistaken for kidnappers.
The command’s public relations officer, DSP Yakubu Sabo, who announced the arrest in a statement also said one of the three persons shot in the effort to stop the mob from lynching the men has died.
Sabo said that the Lagos Police Command with the three men who stood surety for Imam trailed him to Kaduna to invite him to the station “but on seeing them, he raised the alarm that they are kidnapers and the mob attacked the men that stood surety for him.”
Imam was arrested for fraud in Lagos and granted bail but he fled to Kaduna prompting the police to storm the state with his three sureties to effect his arrest.
Sabo had earlier on Monday in a statement explained the circumstances surrounding the lynching of the three men by an angry mob who thought they were kidnappers.
The statement reads,
“Some operatives from Lagos Command came in respect of one Alhaji Musa in a fraud case. They came with some sureties who stood for bail for him in Lagos. They tried to come for him to come to Lagos for his case but he was evading justice so they came looking for him in Kaduna.
“While the Police where putting together their papers, the three friends or sureties decided to track and put a tab on him. They met him and told him to follow them but he refused and decided to take his children to school.
“He raised false alarm that they were kidnappers while trailing him, that was how the driver trapped in the vehicle was lynched. One of them was wounded in the head and fell into gutter, the other two escaped and were sheltered in a filling station.
“The police came later and rescued them but were resisted by the thugs who became agitated so the police had to use force.
“The police is saddled with protection of lives, and will not hand over suspects to mobs to lynch.
“The police didn’t do this alone, they were reinforced with the army and subsequently evacuated the suspects.
“One is receiving treatment in the hospital, while the other two are okay and have even given statement concerning the issue, alongside policemen that accompanied them from Lagos”
