Correspondence from Upper West

There is brewing tension in Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region after the killing of a young man in his early twenties by the Police.

Abubakar Shaahid from Dondoli, a suburb in the municipality was reportedly shot and killed by the Police around 8:pm Wednesday, March 8, 2023, on suspicion of being part of a robbery gang terrorising residents.

His family members have however refuted the claims by the Police describing Shaahid as a good boy with no history of criminal act.

Calling for justice for their ward, they have vowed to implore all legitimate means to clear his name from the allegations by the Police anti-robbery taskforce.

According to the spokesperson of the family, Muhammed Tamim, the deceased was on his way to meet a family friend at Tanbileju between 7-8:pm last Wednesday night.

He said on his way there, the friend called to inform the deceased to return home since he had heard gunshots in the suburb. But by that time, according to Tamim, the deceased had already been shot and therefore informed the friend that he was shot by the Police.

Muhammed Tamim said that when they went to the police, the officers said they stopped the deceased on his motorbike but that he immidiately alighted from the motorbike and started running away.

According to him, the police labeled the deceased as a suspect from a robbery gang.

Abubakar Tamim narrated that: "Last night at about 7-8:pm, I had a call from a man at Tanbileju who we call Maalam Umar. He's our family friend and Shaahid (the deceased) usually visited the man to help him with his work. The man is there (at Tanbileju) but has a room in town so the deceased usually ferries him to town (to pass the night). So he was as usual on his way to go and take the man when he was shot dead by the Police. So how do I get to know he was shot by the Police?"

"The man (Maalam Umar) called to tell me that the deceased was coming to take him but because he, Maalam Umar, was hearing gunshots in the area he called to tell the deceased not to come anymore due to the gunshots, only for the deceased to inform the Maalam that he had already been hit by a bullet. So I tried calling Shaahid, the deceased, but he couldn't answer the call. So I called the Assembly Member of the area to make enquiries about the issue. He told me he saw some officers at a checkpoint around the area but they denied involvement in the operations but mentioned the anti-robbery taskforce and asked him to go to the CID office. According to their narration, the Police said that they stopped the deceased who was riding a motorbike but that after stopping, he abandoned the bike and started running away. But for me, I said how can you stop a person, he stops and then leaves his motorbike and starts running away? And then you shot his stomach. When somebody is running away from you, is it not his back that you can shoot, but not his stomach?"

According to the spokesperson, the family wants justice for their loved one to clear his name who they say had no criminality record at all as being purported by the Police.

The family wants independent investigations into the case to bring out the truth and allow the law to take its cause.

Attempts to get official response from the police have proven difficult as no officer was prepared to go on record even though they are aware of the case except pledging to journalists to release a statement which is yet to come to the fore over 72hours after the incident occurred.

However, very reliable sources in the service who spoke to GhanaWeb on condition of anonymity confirmed the young man was indeed gunned down by their officers but insisted he was an armed robber.

The body of the deceased has since been buried after it was released to the family on Friday, March 10.