Barely a week after the car explosion hit Okene, armed men suspected to be robbers, on Friday night attacked and looted a bank as well as a police station in Iyara, Ijumu Local Government of Kogi State, leading the death of a policeman.
An eyewitness said that the suspected robbers, who invaded the town in batches split into two groups and commenced their operation at about 9:45pm, shooting sporadically into the air.
It was further gathered that one of the groups attacked the Iyara branch of Unity Bank and bombed the strong room with Improvised Explosive Devices (IED), carting away cash from the vault.
The robbers were said to have gunned down a policeman on guard at the bank, before blasting the strong room.
From there, they were said to have moved to the Divisional Police Station, where they met strong resistance from the Anti-Terrorist Squad, which foiled their plans to loot the armoury of arms and ammunition.
When our reporter visited the town, residents of the town who spoke to DailyPost on condition of anonymity, said the hoodlums held the town
hostage for the better part of the night and kept detonating the explosives indiscriminately amidst sporadic shooting.
Kogi police command’s spokesman, Mr Ile Simon (DSP), confirmed the attack on the bank and cross-firing at the police station, but could not give any casualty figure or amount taken from the bank.
“We cannot say for now, all we got from there is that they attacked the bank and our station and there was exchange of fire,” he stated.
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