Kaduna: Police refute killing allegation, reports say 3 feared dead in Shi’ites clash


There was pandemonium in Bakin Ruwa area of the Nnamdi Azikwe Expressway, bypass of Kaduna, as police and members of the Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky led Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) clashed Tuesday morning.
The IMN group of the Shi’ite Islamic sect were gathering at the bypass area of Kaduna state capital to proceed on Ashura Day procession when the incident happened. 


The Shi’ites had planned to come out as early as 6:00am to beat the security agents to the plan to stop them from the procession.
However, the police who relied on intelligence report, quickly moved to the scene and dispersed the gathering IMN members.
The Shi’ites however claimed that, three of their members were killed in the process.
One of the IMN leaders, Aliyu Umar, said that the police attacked them while observing their religious right of Ashura mourning.


According to him, “What happened to us this morning was not a clash. It was an attack on armless members of IMN. We were observing an event in Islamic calendar which is called Ashura mourning as a procession.
“We were on our way to observe this procession. We were doing it peacefully as we were doing it before when policemen attacked us, shooting live bullets at us where they killed three people and wounded so many others. I’m yet to confirm the number of those that are wounded,” Umar said.


Meanwhile, Kaduna State Police Command has refuted the allegation of killing the Shi’ite members, stating that the allegation was false and mischievous.
The Command’s Public Relations Officer, DSP Yakubu Abubakar Sabo, stated categorically that the protesters were dispersed professionally, and that no one was killed during the operation. 

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