A vigilante commander and five other persons have been allegedly feared dead in Nnewi and Nnobi Communities of Anambra State in a gun battle between security operatives and hoodlums said to be gun men in the two communities.

Sources disclosed this on Monday, saying the gun men firstlystormed Nnewi before the heading to Nnobi where they also unleashed mayhem.

It was gathered that some security operatives gave the gun men a chase of in Nnewi leading to their leaving through Nnewi -Ichi road.

On reaching, Nnewi Ichi, the gun men were said to have seen some vigilante men chasing after them and waited for themthere.

Sources said that the hoodlums opened fire on thevigilante men andin the process shot down one security man and another unidentified personbefore veering towards Onyibo Junction at Nnobi in a bid to escape uncaught

At Onyibo Junction,Nnobithehoodlums were said to have seen another groupof security operatives blockingtheirway.

According to sources, the bad guys waited at the transformer close to the junctionwhere they and the security operatives opened fire on each other and in the process shot persons including a childof aboutnine years who was said tobe goingon errand and two women, of whoone of them was said to be a newly married woman who was returning from the garden carrying a basket of bitter kola on her head with stray bullets.

Sources said there was no incident at Nnobi Junction when thefleeing hoodlums reached there butonly fired shots to scare street traders away from the road

However,on reaching,Awka-Etiti the gunmen allegedlyabducted an unidentified man travellingon a jeep, pushed down his wife and fled with thevehicle.

According vigilante sourcesat Nnewi, (names with held) there was intelligence report that some hoodlums were heading towards Nnobi. This made those operative stationed atAuthority Radio FMNnewi to mobilized themselves againstthe hoodlums.

Thesource addedthat when theyfound out thatthey had only five bullets left,they retreated while others stayed behind.

The source said their commander,identified asElokaOnyejekwe was shot dead while the driverof thevigilante vehicle was shot on his legs, adding that several others were wounded in theattack that ensued between them.

The PPRO Anambra State police command,Ikenga Tochukwuconfirmed the story sayinginformation reachinghim at press time was still sketchypromising to goon air when he had got the whole information.

“I have beenmade aware of the incident. The information is stillsketchy. As soon as I get the whole information, I will go to air,” the PPROsaid. (Daily Independent)