Audio By Carbonatix
The Chairman of Parliament's Defense and Interior Committee has dismissed concerns of SARS igniting in Ghana raised by Asawase MP, Muntaka Mubarak.
Seth Acheampong insists the police acted professionally in a recent arrest of some suspected armed robbers in Asawase, an act he says does not qualify as aggressive.
He cautioned his colleague MP against bastardising the Police Service as the officers who undertook the operation were professional despite the suspects resisted arrest when the police went to Asawase.
“When the police attempted to go into the community, they were resisted in uniform, resistance comes in several forms so the police needed to sit back and have a fallback plan and I am sure the fallback plan has yielded results," he said.
Muntaka Mubarak had said the operations of the Anti-armed Robbery Squad of the Ghana Police Service could ignite violent protests in the country like the one sparked by the SARS unit in Nigeria.
He is asking the Service to review the mode of operation of its anti-robbery unit to prevent it from degenerating into a Nigerian replica.
The MP said the unit is being used to intimidate the public for no reason warning that the EndSARS in Nigerian backlash should guide the Service against similar repercussions.
He accused them of acting contrary to their professional code citing the wrongful killing of seven persons in the Region to buttress his point.
The MP said the matter has already been raised in Parliament, expecting the Interior Ministry to come before the House to answer issues concerning the unit but accepts it might not be immediately possible due to time constraints.
“They are sharbily dressed, some of them with dread locks or unkempt hair. If they were not holding guns and in police vehicles you will call them deviants. Let the police tell us where they are getting the idea of policing from?” he added.
But Mr Seth Acheampong disagrees.
He said, "Even in instances where officers of the Service have been killed, they have not taken the law into their own hands.
"That is why I am ensuring that we don’t bastardise the police service, they always show up and have been very loyal to the state.”
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