Government will probe KTI police brutality – Opoku Prempeh

The Minister of Education, Mathew Opoku-Prempeh has stated that government would launch a full-scale investigation into the circumstances leading to the brutality unleashed on students of the Kumasi Technical Institute by some police officers Tuesday.

Over twenty students of KTI have been hospitalised after a standoff with some police officers Tuesday night.

The officers were called in to ward off the students who were said to have been on rampage blocking portions of the Amakom-WAEC road. They were returning from the Baba Yara Stadium after participating in the Inter-schools competition in the region.

The police officers in their quest to maintain law and order fired gunshots and tear gas when the students resisted and pelted stones at them as they tried to unblock the road. The angry officers reportedly stormed the school’s dormitories vandalising windows and doors and manhandled any student who came their way.

Addressing students of the institute Wednesday, Mr. Opoku Prempeh said the government is determined to probe the circumstances leading to the mayhem, assuring that whoever is found culpable will be made to face the full rigours of the law.

Even though the government, sternly condemns the despicable use of fierce force on the students by the police officers and that sympathises with them, the probe will not be one-sided, he indicated stating that “there are some parts of the story that beggars belief.”

He said: “From here we are going to the Regional Police Headquarters to listen to their side [and] if it means that we have to go to Accra to the [Inspector General of Police] IGP to make sure they get a panel to investigate this matter we will do that.”

“I don’t hope…I don’t pray that the [KTI brutality] should happen in another school. If we are going to prevent it from happening, it means that we have to thoroughly investigate so that we all learn the lessons,” he added.

He condemned the police officers’ alleged firing of live bullets in their attempts to rein in the rampaging students.

He pleaded with the students to exercise caution and return to their books assuring that “so far as the night follows the day we will get to the bottom of this.”

Human Rights Lawyer, Francis Xavier Sosu in an interview with Morning Starr on Wednesday described the police officers’ resort to extreme force on the students as brutish.

He said the treatment meted out to the students by the police is barbarous and a clear violation of their fundamental Human Rights.

“This is another case of brutality,” he told the host of Morning Starr, Francis Abban on Wednesday.