Camp officials flog IDP caught stealing from fish pond
A member of Internally Displaced Person (IDP) at Durumi camp in Abuja was on Sunday caught stealing fish from a nearby fish pond at odd hours.
The suspect, one Muhammed Idirisa, from Baga town in Borno State, was arrested by the police on patrol.
He was said to have concealed the stolen fishes inside a sack and was about leaving when the police arrived and arrested him.
Sources at the camp said he was identified by the camp officials after the police put a call across to them.
One of the sources told our reporter that the suspects and his accomplice were flogged in the presence of other members of the camp as punishment for their action.
Speaking on the incident, leader of the IDPs in the camp, Ibrahim Ahmadu, said he received a phone call from the police on patrol around 3a.m., that a member of their camp was caught with some fish concealed in a sack suspected to have been stolen.
“When I got there, I recognized the person and after some questioning he confessed to the police that he stole the fish but that he was misled into the act by a friend, who had told him that the fish pond belonged to his master who had asked for his assistance in parking the fish,’’ he said.
He said the suspect was released on bail after their intervention.
Ahmadu added that the second suspect, Sulaiman Muhammed from Mangu area of Plateau State, was nabbed later in the morning when he came for the money thinking the fish had been sold.
“The first accused tried to convince him by explaining how he was arrested by the police, got bail and that he had asked him to return the fish back to the owners but he refused to listen to him.
“As they were arguing, the matter was reported to me again and that was where I discovered that the second person was actually not our member as he claimed, so we decided to flog them in the public to serve as warning to others,’’ he explained.
He said in response to the increased crime rates within and around the camp, they had formed a vigilante group to check mate the menace, adding that the group recently came across a gang of armed robbers during a night patrol in the area.
The camp leader said one of them was arrested while the others ran away.
He claimed that a locally made pistol was found in his possession and that they handed him over to the police at Durumi division from where he was taken to the FCT police command for further investigation.