Gunmen suspected to be armed robbers last fortnight stormed Celenzia Community in Okokomaiko area of Lagos State and subjected the residents to untold hardship and torture.
They particularly struck at 2, Charley Pace Street, broke into the flats and tied their husbands together while the women were compelled to bring all they have in their kitchens. As the women were busy preparing delicious dishes for them, the bandits ransacked their apartments and collected over N235, 000 including their valuables.
Victims said their operation started at about 7.00pm in the evening and ended at about 10:30pm.
Crime Alert learnt that before their operation, four members
of the gang sneaked into a two-storey building at about 6.00pm and hung around
the pent house which no one occupies for about an hour. One of the tenants in
the building was reported to have seen them but could not confront them
thinking they were visiting a co-tenant. It was also discovered that the
robbers used a neighbour that is familiar with the tenants to penetrate each
and every flat in the building.
When Crime Alert visited the scene, different accounts of
the victims were taken. The first eye witness, a tenant who pleaded anonymity
said: “I was lying down when I saw one of the robbers loitering around and I
challenged him, asking him what he was doing in front of my flat.
He replied me aggressively and brought out a gun, so I
surrendered to him. He told me that he will not hurt me if I cooperated with
him and that I should go upstairs into one of my neighbour’s flat because that
was where other tenants were been kept.
One robbers held tenants hostage
“When I got there, I saw the other tenants in the room. The
men had their hands tied and their lips were sealed with tape. It was just one
robber that kept us hostage, he was holding a gun while the rest were searching
the flats. When we were finally released, I discovered that my flat was turned
upside down and they carted away N30,000 from my flat.”
Another victim who told Crime Alert that she went out to
throw away waste when one of the robbers pointed a gun at her and forced her to
go back to her flat narrated her story. She said: “I was going out to throw
away waste when one of the robbers pointed a gun at me and ordered me back to
my flat.
“He said if I failed to cooperate that he will ‘seize my
breadth’, so I went inside. He asked me to bring all that I have with me and I
told him that I had nothing with me, he searched the house, collected my phone
and told me to go out and knock at the door of other neighbours of which I told
him that I am a visitor and I don’t know anybody.”
Another victim said that neither she nor her husband was
around at the time of the robbery, and that she was returning from the market
when she heard a cry for help from the building and quickly ran to the leader
of the community security to lay her compliant.
Community security
“I was just returning from the market when I heard a cry
from the building shouting thief! thief!! I ran to complain to the leader of
our community security who responded immediately but we could not catch up with
the robbers who had left before we got there.”
The leader of the community security who is simply called
“Baba catch”, said that he alerted other members of the community security
immediately he was informed about the robbery but could not catch up with the
robbers.
“I was told by passers-by that the robbers crossed through a
wooden bridge that leads to another community and that a suspected boy in a
military camouflage was caught some minutes after the robbers crossed the same
bridge but was released after some interrogation.
“I alerted my boys immediately I was informed by a tenant of
the building that robbers invaded their homes. We did not catch up with them
and I ordered my boys to comb the community. Later, we were told that they
crossed over to the other community through a wooden bridge. When we got the
bridge, we sighted an under aged man in a military polo and we stopped and
interrogated him to know who he was and he aggressively responded that he was a
solider but could not present his identity.
“I have to call a retired military officer that lives in the
community to come and attest to the claims and when he came, the boy later
confessed not belonging to the Nigerian army but a member of the boyscout. That
was after he was slapped on the face by the angry ex-military officer. However,
he was freed after the interrogation.”
No comments:
Post a Comment