By Mike Osarogiagbon
BENIN CITY-Three armed robbers suspected to be members of a deadly gang terrorising Medical Stores Road, Universal, Okhoro and environs have been apprehended while robbing a pastor in Benin City.
It was gathered that the pastor (name withheld by us) had gone in his Xtera Jeep marked LAGOS EKY-353 CA to assist an aged woman to his church when four armed men waylaid him at Universal Street, about 8 a.m last Sunday.
They took the pastor away in his vehicle, forcefully collected his Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card and the PIN as vigilant youths in the area who witnessed the operation, entered a car and trailed the armed robbers unnoticed.
The robbers were however apprehended beside a bank at Uselu shell while waiting for their member who had gone to ATM with the pastor’s card to withdraw cash from his account.
On sighting the calamity that had befell his gang as the angry mob unleashed violence on them, the robber escaped from the bank.
It could not be ascertained at press time whether he was able to withdraw cash immediately, it was gathered that the youths were not aware that a member of the robbery gang had alighted from the pastor’s vehicle.
A cut-to-size double barrel and one locally made pistol were recovered from the suspects.
The youths in the area were said to have taken such action when the spate of robbery became incessant.
A young barber in Medical Stores Road was reportedly robbed and shot dead in presence of his new baby, nursing wife and mother barely a week ago.
Cases of car theft was said to have also increased in the area in the past weeks as the residents were sleeping with eye opened.
It was learnt that operatives of Okhoro Divisional Police Headquarters stormed the scene and took the three suspects and the arms away.
Confirming the incident the Public Relations Officer for Edo Police Command DSP Chidi Nwabuzor said the three suspects had confessed to the crime as the case had been transferred to the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Police Command Headquarters in Benin City.
