A teargas canister shot
by Operation Puff Adder, a team of policemen combating drug peddlers and
hoodlums has allegedly set a thatched house on fire in Calabar. The grass house
located on 6, Murray Street off Target Road went up in flames after the police
team in hot pursuit of hoodlums fired gunshots and launched teargas canisters
sporadically around the street and one of the canisters fell on the roof of the
thatched house and eventually set it on fire. Prince Francis Ephraim, the owner
of the house told Vanguard that the incident occurred in the morning of
13th December and has left him and his family of seven staying in the
open. *That early morning I wanted to go out but decided to prepare something
to eat and when the food was ready I took it to the parlour to eat and suddenly
there was a lot of firing by police and I heard a sound on the roof of my
house, ‘kpem” and I came out and saw smoke coming out from the place the sound
came from”. He said when he went inside to get some water to put out the smoke
he heard neighbours shouting “fire” “fire” and he rushed out to try to put out
the fire but the flame only increased.
“Somebody brought a car and we drove to the
fire service and we got there they said they have been informed of the fire
outbreak and came with us and tried to put out the fire but did not have enough
water to put it out”. The distraught man said everything in the house was razed
down and he was left with only the boxers and tee-shirt he was wearing while
the children who had gone out at the time had nothing left. He narrated that he
went to a local radio station, Hit Fm to tell them his ordeal. One of the staff
followed me to see what had happened and from there to the State Police
headquarters where they met the Deputy Commissioner of Police Operations who on
taking a look at the house asked” the Hit Fm reporter if he could call
“this a house?”. From there we went to see the DPO Atakpa and he invited the
leader of the Puff Adder team and the men expressed empathy with what had
happened and said the team will on its own do something since waiting for the
federal government will take time.” He said the DPO asked him to see him the
next day and when he got there the man asked for the teargas canister and when
he refused to hand it over, the DPO said “it will not be well with me”. Prince
Ephraim said non of the hoodlums the police was after took refuge in his house
neither had he anything to do with drugs and could not understand why the
police fired at his house. DSP Irene Ugbo, the Cross River Police Command did
not pick her calls.
Source: Vanguard News Nigeria