Security presence in Asawase in the Ashanti Region has heightened after some irate youth attacked a local police station Sunday evening.
The youth had claimed that a young man who was picked up in a police swoop was brutalised by the officers, leading to his death.
The crowd later besieged the police station and destroyed properties on sight. Unconfirmed images widely shared online show shattered windows of the police station, destroyed benches and a badly damaged metering system, taking the facility off the grid.
“The information is that initially they resisted the police arrest, and during the struggle one of them was sent to the hospital but was later confirmed dead,” the assembly member for the Asawase West Electoral Area Gideon Okai told Asaase News.
“So, they came and attacked the police,” Okai added. “They threw stones and damaged property, leaving only one policewoman to her fate. So, I had to call for reinforcement. The police officers who came around had to fire warning shots to disperse them.”
He claimed that those attackers are not members of his electoral area, indicating that they had earlier threatened to set the police station ablaze.
“And so, for now, joint police and military officers have taken over the police station. This is to quell this planned attack. It is important to state that these are not members of my electoral area,” Okai added.
Commissioned on 18 September 2015, the police station served the people of Asawase and its environs following the growing spate of crimes in the area. The attention of the Asokore Mampong Municipal Security Council and the office of the Member of Parliament for the area have been drawn to the latest incident.
It is not clear whether any further arrest has been made. Officers deployed to the area were still policing the area at the time of filing this report.
Reporting By Jonathan Ofori in Asawase, Ashanti Region
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