A police inspector attached to Orba Police Area Command in Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State, Mr. Oluchukwu Omenogor, has been reportedly shot dead.
Daily Sun gathered that the officer popularly called, ‘Babylon, was gunned down by gunmen during a night surveillance at Eha-Alumona Town in Nsukka Local Government Area
Details of his killing were sketchy at the time of this report, but the deceased was popular for his exploit in tracking down hardened criminals in Nsukka area of the state.
Efforts to speak with the Enugu State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Daniel Ndukwe, were not successful as he did not respond to calls and text message sent to his mobile phone. But, a senior police officer at Orba Area Command, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed the incident, saying that details of what happened were still unclear.
“Yes, Babylon is dead. I heard he was shot dead last night, but I am yet to know who shot him dead,” the senior police officer said.
Meanwhile, the Enugu State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ahmed Ammani, has ordered an intensified manhunt of the assailants, who murdered three police operatives performing stop-and-search duty within the state.
Three police operatives on stop-and-search operation at Agbani Roundabout in Agbani community, Nkanu West Local Government Area of the state, were killed by armed hoodlums suspected to be the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) renegades, yesterday.
In a statement yesterday, the state’s police spokesman said the Commissioner gave the order after he visited the scene of the incident.
He said the Commissioner’s visit was to enable him assess and re-strategise towards further containing the nefarious activities of the subversive criminal elements, following their recent attacks and gruesome murder of security operatives and innocent citizens in the state.
According to him, the IPOB renegades numbered about 15 and operated in Lexus Jeep and Toyota Tundra vehicles before the attacks on police on duty.
He said: “Preliminary investigation suggests that the same hoodlums are responsible for the attack and shooting in the thigh of a filling station manager, and kidnapping of a male victim and snatching of another’s vehicle at different times.
“This related incidents happened within the Ibagwa-Nike axis and Alulu-Nike axis of the Enugu East Local Government Area on November 17 and18 respectively.
“Similarly, the Commissioner visited Nkpokolo-Achi in Oji-River LGA, where a suspected network of the same subversive criminal elements infiltrated into the area from neighbouring Anambra State community, in the evening hours of November 18.
“The subversive criminal elements attacked and murdered Gabriel Onuzulike, identified as former chairman of Oji-River LGA and commissioner in the state, and his brother.
“They were, however, pursued, intercepted and engaged in a fierce gun battle at Inyi community of the same council area, by a joint police/army team, as they were escaping back to Anambra State, and two of the assailants were gunned down.”
The Commissioner, according to the police spokesman, said the Command would never be deterred in its quest to rid the state of criminals.
He said the Commissioner had ordered maximum deployment of all operational and intelligence resources of the Command to ensure that the renegades and other criminal elements operating in the state were hunted down.
“The command will stop at nothing to fish out and bring to an end the heinous and violent crimes of the unrepentant criminals,” he said.
He said the Commissioner enjoined residents to remain law-abiding, vigilant and assist the Command with credible information or intelligence required to fish out the criminal elements and contain general acts of crime and criminality.