The Lagos State Police Command has commenced aggressive manhunt for suspected militants who invaded Igbolomu and Ishawo areas of Ikorodu last Friday and unleashed mayhem on residents.

The gunmen, suspected to be from the Niger Delta, were said to have come in through the waterways close to the communities and started shooting sporadically, a development which led to the death of some people while others sustained various degree of injuries.

Addressing newsmen on Saturday, Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, said an aggressive and massive manhunt had already commenced against the suspected militants, adding that the investigation was going on smoothly.

Owoseni, who was personally at the scene of the incident moments after the attack, also denied conflicting media reports as to the actual number of people that were killed by the attackers.

The CP disclosed that the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Owutu responded with his men almost immediately after he was alerted, adding that mobile policemen were swiftly deployed to be patrolling the affected areas.

He said: “The DPO in Owutu went to Igbolomu and the surrounding communities and as of the time he got there, he saw everybody running in panic and it could be maybe because of that immediate response the militants had fled the place and while moving round, he later found six corpses of the people that were killed and the police took over those corpses out of which two were immediately released to their families who said they want to go and burry according to Islamic rights, while we took the remaining four to the morgue.

“That was how we covered that place until we got support and reinforcement from the Nigerian Army who came to stay with us.

“I can confirm that the causality is six and no family till now has come out even while I was there to say that they have extra corpses apart from the ones that were recovered by the police in Owutu that immediately went to that place when the incident happened.”

Owoseni said before now, the police had been making arrests in the areas, while the militants who committed the latest atrocity were being hunted, expressing optimism that they would soon be apprehended.

“What people must know is that this is not an investigation or operation that you can just say one plus one. The guys are taking advantage of the creeks. They hit and run to the creeks and also use the wee hours in the night to carry out that operation. Anywhere in the world, the military and police hardly operate in the night and so they have been taking advantage of that and that is why we have now emplaced a permanent standby points in all the four areas that we have identified as where they are coming from,” Owoseni said.

He added that the occupation of the standby points would be sustained by security forces, while a permanent solution would be found to the impunity that was being carried out by the pipeline vandals.

•Photo shows Lagos CP, Fatai Owoseni.

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