The incident occurred on Saturday, February 27, 2021. The Director, 31, had reportedly gone with another person on a motorbike to transact business around a Mobile Money outlet in the area when the incident occurred.
The Public Affairs Officer of the Upper East Regional Police Command, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mr David Fianko-Okyere, who confirmed the incident to Graphic Online at Bolgatanga on Friday, March 5, 2021, said the deceased, together with another man were on a motorbike when one of the suspected robbers ordered them to turn off the motorbike engine and lie on the ground but when the deceased attempted to flee the scene with the motorbike, the robbers shot him dead.
Incident
ASP Fianko-Okyere explained that at about 7:00pm on that fateful day, police received a call that there had been a robbery incident at around the Pelungu market.
The robbers who were using an unregistered Apsonic motorbike for their robbery allegedly attacked a Mobile money shop and Mobile phone dealership shop in the same vicinity both owned by a teacher whose name has been withheld for security reasons.
A police patrol team which has been deployed to mount surveillance on the area was then returning to the area after depositing a body at the mortuary of the Regional Hospital at Bolgatanga.
The Public Affairs Officer stated that the body deposited at the morgue was in connection with a case of unnatural death which the police were investigating and so after that assignment the patrol team proceeded to the Pelungu crime scene.
At the scene, the patrol team were informed that the robbers had fled the scene after they succeeded in attacking the two shops and made away with 10 assorted mobile phones and a cash amount of GH¢750.
Modus Operandi
ASP Fianko-Okyere revealed that when the robbers stormed the two shops they told the vendor(the teacher) that they wanted to withdraw an amount of GH¢3,000 but the vendor, sensing danger told the robbers he did not have such an amount in his wallet to withdraw for them.
The Vendor then told the robbers he was calling another mobile money vendor to help by sending the money to his wallet. The robbers agreed and they sat down waiting patiently for the transaction to be completed so that they can have their money.
However, the vendor decided to use an exit door and escaped home while the unsuspecting robbers were still waiting for their money.
When the vendor got to his house, his neighbours told him that a group of suspected robbers had come looking for him in his house.
The vendor then asked his children to lock all the doors to the house and he left but on his way he met the robbers going back to look for him at his house but the robbers could not identify him.
When the robbers saw that going to the vendor’s house had become a wild goose chase, they returned to the vendor’s shops again and a short while after, two unsuspecting customers, one of them the deceased, came to transact business at the mobile money vendor’s shops.
They met the robbers waiting at the two shops they had earlier attacked and they ordered the customers including the deceased to turn off their engine and lie on the ground but the deceased refused to take the order while the other customer obeyed.As the deceased decided to flee on the motor bike they were using the robbers shot him and he died instantly.
The body of the deceased has since been released to the family for burial.
-Graphic