11,175 CARTRIDGES RETRIEVED IN UPPER EAST (Page 14)

Story: Benjamin Xornam Glover, Bolgatanga

THE Upper East Regional Police Command has retrieved 11,175 pieces of live cartridges from three suspected persons who were allegedly transporting them to Bawku in the Upper East Region.
The suspects are the driver of the vehicle in which the ammunition was found, Emmanuel Owusu Baako, 28; the spare driver, Stephen Antwi, 27, and the driver’s mate, Kofi Fosu, 28.
The three were on board a commercial bus which was said to be travelling from Kumasi to Bawku, which is currently under curfew, following a dispute that claimed lives and property.
Briefing the press in Bolgatanga last Tuesday, the Upper East Regional Police Commander, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCOP) Ofosu Mensah Gyeabour, said the bus carrying the ammunition was intercepted by the police at the Binduri Police Barrier in the Upper East Region about 6 o’clock in the morning.
He said the ammunition was concealed in nine cartons of Maggi cube boxes and that each of the containers had 50 packets of live BB and AA cartridges.
 He said the suspects had been placed in police custody pending further investigations into the matter, while the bus had been impounded.
 DCOP Gyeabour revealed that the police, in a close collaboration with their counterparts in Kumasi, had arrested one Sule, a station master in Kumasi where the bus was loaded, to assist with investigations.
In a related development, two persons, namely, Alhassan Hanza, 20, and Sumaila Seidu, 18, both natives of Manga, near Bawku, have also been arrested by the police for possessing locally-manufactured pistols and ammunition.
According to the Upper East Regional Police Commander, the two were arrested at separate police checkpoints in Bawku on February 2 and February 4, this year, respectively.
He said they would soon be arraigned.
 He indicated that while some normalcy had returned to Bawku and its surroundings, the police and other security agencies continued to receive information concerning the smuggling of arms to the area.
 He said the police would intensify spot checks and diligent searches of all vehicles, motorbikes, donkey carts and persons entering the region and for that matter Bawku and its environs.