Two kidnappers shot dead in Enugu, victim rescued

The suspects were shot dead during a gun battle with a combined team of Police opeartives while the abducted victim was rescued.

In a statement on Monday night, the State Police Spokesman, Daniel Ndukwe, said that while one of the kidnappers, identified as Baron, was neutralized on-the-spot, others escaped with varying degrees of gunshot wounds.

The statement reads: “Following the policing thrust and the renewed crime fighting impetus of CP Kanayo Uzuegbu, a combined team of Police Operatives drawn from the NPF Special Forces, Awkunanaw Police Division and Tactical Teams of the Enugu State Command, led by the Deputy Commissioner of Police in-charge of Operations, DCP Olasoji Akinbayo, on 20/08/2023 at about 8pm, rescued a male kidnap victim (names withheld) at Centenary, along Enugu/Port-Harcourt Expressway, after a gun fight with the hoodlums.

“The victim’s black-coloured Lexus 350 Jeep was recovered alongside 1 locally made revolver gun loaded with for 4 cartridges and another locally fabricated pistol belonging to the criminal elements.

“However, further manhunt of the fleeing members of the gang led to the discovery and recovery of the lifeless body of the second neutralized hoodlum, simply identified as Chukwunonso a.k.a. “Nolly”, in the morning hours of today, 21/08/2023, in a forest at the location of the gun duel.

“The two neutralized members of the criminal gang have been on the criminals’ watch-list of the Command, while the operational success was due to the Operatives’ swift response to a distress call on the kidnap of the victim, along Agbani Road Enugu, in the said night.

“Consequently, CP Uzuegbu, while commending the Operatives for quickly adapting to his newly introduced crime-fighting strategies, has tasked them and all other Police personnel of the Command to sustain the tempo, stressing that there will be no breathing space for unrepentant criminals in the State, under his watch as the Commissioner of Police.”