Police recover arms from 750 repentant rustlers, kidnappers

The Kaduna State Police Command has collected arms turned in by 750 repentant criminals, including cattle rustlers, bandits and kidnappers.

Daily Trust gathered that the criminals who swore an oath to abandon their illegal activities in Anchau village, Kubau Local Government Area of Kaduna State over the weekend took advantage of the window of opportunity opened by the government and the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris.

Speaking during the recovery, the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Austin Iwar, said the criminals were made to repent after intensive dialogue involving community leaders, adding that as part of the programme, those who renounced violence would also handover their weapons to government.

The police commissioner, however, said that the recovery of arms would not be made public, so as to build trust and encourage other criminals operating in the state to also repent.

He said, “I assure you very soon we will begin to recover most of these arms, as some of them have volunteered to handover their arms back, but not in public.”

He said the repentant criminals used the deep forests in the area as hideout to terrorise communities, adding that, “one of the strategies we decided to adopt is to see how we can get across to some community leaders in the context of the community policing programme we are doing.”

He added, “If you want to solve a problem you have to work with the people that created the problem. We also held series of meetings with hunters as a prelude to the series of activities we call ‘Renouncing Violence Strategies’.”

Iwar described the event as very important to the efforts being made to restore peace and stability in the state.

Head of Anchau Vigilante Service, Malam Audu Sallau, commended the security operatives for their total support to the programme.

Sallau said, “None of the repentant criminals was forced to do so; they voluntarily saw reason to renounce violence, and since the commencement of the programme our communities are now relatively peaceful.”