The Gombe State Police Command says it has dealt with bandits terrorising residents of the state after declaring war against them. The Commissioner of Police, Mr Bello Makwashi, said: “Gombe State is very calm and our crime rate has reduced drastically. We are preparing our officers for the ‘ember’ months.
“We are totally ready for the bandits. We have started given our officers the right orientation on these ‘ember’ months on how to checkmate the bandits within the state. The operatives Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and Operation Puff Adder are set to battle the bandits.
“We have started redeploying our police officers to the flash points. We will flush out the bandits terrorising people in some communities in Ayuba and its environs. Also, we are mounting 48-hour surveillance. To this end, we deployed some intelligence operatives (SIB) after the bandits to catch them unaware.
The command has embarked on community policing. We invited shareholders including community leaders, religious leaders, student union and market women to a dialogue. We told them how to imbibe community policing and work with police to enable us fight crime within our community. We are going to have another dialogue with hunters.
“The stakeholders are playing a good role. We need to educate and encourage them. Any suspect arrested should be handed over to the police for proper investigation. We need the support of members of the public for vital information to enable us to tackle banditry. The command has built a good relationship with public. We are being doing things in common to achieve the same goal.”