A 28-year-old man, simply identified as Salihu, who was mistaken for a motorcycle thief, was killed by a mob at Anguwar Dodo in Gwagwalada metropolis in the FCT.

A resident of the area, Shuaibu Usman, said the incident happened on Friday, around 4pm when a mob ran after a motorcycle thief in the area.

He said the owner went into a mosque to pray, and a thief took the motorcycle and zoomed off.

“When the thief zoomed off with the motorcycle, someone who saw him raised the alarm, and people started pursuing him,” he said.

According to him, the motorcycle thief upon sighting the mob approaching him, abandoned the motorcycle and fled.

“When the thief escaped, a man who saw a motorcycle on the ground with its fuel pouring decided to stand it properly.

“But before you knew what was happening, the mob descended on the innocent man, thinking that he was the thief, and killed him on the spot,” he said.

He said though some people were shouting that the deceased was not the thief, the mob killed him using dangerous objects.

City & Crime learnt that the killing of the deceased resulted in tension in the area as relatives of the deceased insisted on reprisal.

It was, however, learnt that police from both the division and the area command in the area, including vigilantes, were deployed to the area to douse tension.

The spokeswoman of the FCT police command, DSP Adeh Josephine, was yet to confirm the incident as at the time of filing this report.(Daily Trust: Text, excluding headline)