<<Print>>

TWO SUSPECTS have been arrested after a commercial bus driver and a passenger were shot during an armed robbery attack on the Kumasi-Mampong highway yesterday dawn. The suspected highway robbers, numbering about seven, attacked the passenger Nissan Urvan bus at a section of the road between Bepoa and Agona, shooting 45-year-old driver Abdul Rahman and 27-year-old Yaw Ofori in the process. The Ashanti Regional Police Command said while driver Abdul Rahman was shot in the chest, the passenger victim, Yaw Ofori, who was sitting behind him, was shot on the hand by the hoodlums around 12:30 am. Abdul Rahman was compelled to stop the vehicle after the armed goons repeatedly fired several shots on the Urvan bus to deflate one of its tyres and also hit him in the chest. ASP Yusif Mohammed Tanko, in charge of the Public Relations Unit, disclosed in a statement that the armed men blocked the road and got the mini bus with registration number AS 6810-10 trapped. According to the police spokesman, both victims and other passengers on board the bus, which was traveling from Wiamoase towards the Kumasi direction, were robbed of their personal belongings, mobile phones and unspecified amounts of money. ASP Tanko disclosed that Abdul Rahman and Yaw Ofori were rushed to the Agona Asamang Hospital where they were admitted to receive treatment for their gunshot wounds. He indicated that police were alerted to the robbery incident carried out around 12:30 am on Wednesday by seven men who were brandishing guns. ASP Tanko said the police, acting on intelligence, later arrested two men by name Hussein Yakubu, 31, aka Murderer aka Jahrule aka Fuseini, and Dauda Ibrahim, 34, alias Wayo, at Tafo Adompon. A search conducted on them revealed two foreign pistols, 53 live ammunitions, two daggers, a machete, a hammer and an amount of GH�3,100. Their direct involvement in the incident was yet to be established by the police, who have begun serious investigations to apprehend other suspects in the robbery incident. Anyone who might have witnessed the incident or seen a person or persons putting up suspicious behaviour in the area or any part of the region should contact the regional CID in Kumasi, the police command said. It also called on the victims of this robbery to report immediately to the regional CID headquarters at Adum to assist in identifying the suspects.