Police clash with Islamic SHS students
Bagbin directs parliamentary committee to look into Islamic SHS shooting incident
Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, has alleged that personnel of the Ghana Police Service broke into the Islamic Senior High School (SHS) and started 'terrorising' the students even though they were informed them the situation was under control.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament on June 14, 2022, Muntaka said that the Police for no reason aggressively pursued some of the students which led to injuries.
“… according to fresh information from the school authorities, the Police broke through the school gate, entered the campus, and while the headmaster was telling them that the situation is under control, they didn’t take it and started firing teargas and live ammunition.
“They chased some students into their dormitories and their classrooms and in the course of this, 38 students of the Islamic Senior High School got several degrees of injury and were rushed with ambulances across some hospitals in Kumasi,” the minority chief whip, who is also the Member of Parliament for Asawase, said.
Meanwhile, the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has directed the Defence and Interior committees of Parliament to probe the shooting incident and present a report to the house within a week.
“… the members of the Committee should visit the Police, starting from the IGP to the Regional Police Command and the school in question, the hospitals and see the injured students and then report back to the House with your kind permission by Tuesday,” he added.
Background
About 25 students were hospitalised after Police allegedly opened tear gas on them while they were protesting frequent crashes of pedestrians in front of the School.
The victims were said to be part of a group of students who blocked the Abrepo Junction-Barekese road during the protest.
Sources say the Police personnel were deployed to the School to maintain law and order.
The angry students massed up on the road in protest, as they called for the construction of speed ramps on that section of the road.
Ambulance Service
The National Ambulance Service has pegged the number of victims admitted to hospital, at 25.
Regional Director of the Service, Sommit Duut, says all the victims are responding to treatment.
He, however, stressed that they have not treated any traumatic injury like that of gunshot wounds. According to him, the students rather suffered respiratory distress.
“All that we treated were just difficulty in breathing and people who were exhausted – we didn’t have any bloody situation.
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