The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has approved the deployment of additional police units and manpower to beef up security in Katsina State.
The approval was secured on Thursday, according to the state police command’s spokesman, SP Gambo Isah.
Gambo told journalists at the state police command headquarters in Katsina that “As I am talking to you now, an additional three units of mobile police are on their way to Katsina State. The approval was given by the Inspector General of police.
“The units will be in addition to the three counter-terrorism units that are already on the ground and who have been deployed in the front line Local Government Areas in the state that share boundaries with Zamfara State.
“We also have the IGP Special task forces on the ground, to take the fight to the bandits inside the bush.
Isah maintained that the police and other security units in the state were doing their best to curtail banditry, kidnapping and other security challenges.
He agreed that there were security challenges in the eight frontline councils with Zamfara State, insisting that many councils in the state have not recorded cases of armed robbery and other security challenges in recent times.
The police Spokesman added, “Our Commissioner of police here, CP Muhammed Wakili, takes the issue of security of the state seriously and times without number he has personally led in the patrol of grey areas. On Wednesday night, for instance, a few minutes after midnight, he personally drove himself from the police headquarters and went around town before retiring home that night, just to monitor the security situation. This, he carries out on several occasions.’’
It was also learnt that as part of strategies to fully tackle the banditry and kidnappings, over 500 conventional policemen in the state recently underwent a one-month combat training at the 27, Mobile Police headquarters.
Isah disclosed that recent police efforts in the state had led to the arrest of over 100 suspected kidnappers and the recovery of thirty assorted weapons among which were ten AK 47 rifles.
Sources also confided in the Punch that the command would need, among other equipment, at least twenty Armed Personnel Carriers to tackle the bandits who are held up inside the forest in the front line local government areas.
Punch recalls that Governor Aminu Masari on Wednesday conveyed an extraordinary security meeting in Katsina where he disclosed that the state was under the siege of banditry, kidnapping, and armed robbery.
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