Scores of people sustained gunshots wounds in the revenge attacks while several women were raped, victims told Daily Trust yesterday. Five survivors have been admitted at the Federal Medical Centre, Gusau. The attack occurred only three days after the visit of Police Inspector General Hafiz Ringim to the state to receive 20 patrol vehicles donated by the state government to the state police command to fight crime in the state.
Victims told our correspondent that the robbers invaded the communities around 5am on Tuesday after residents had finished eating the dawn Ramadan meal and retired back to bed, adding that the attackers were armed with AK 47 rifles and other automatic weapons.
The raid was said to have been well planned by the robbers as they combed villages searching for known vigilante officials and people they suspected of having a hand in the earlier attacks on them.
The casualties in the attack were high in Guru and Tungar Bashe, according to a vigilante leader, Malam Muhammad, who said the robbers slaughtered the Fulani chief of his Guru village, Malam Filani Dangajere and raped his brother's wife. "In Guru alone they killed nine, after ransacking my house looking for me," he said.
Corroborating him, another victim of the attack, Mande Adamu who sustained a gunshot wound in the thigh, said the robbers slaughtered a vigilante member in his Tungar Baushe village in addition to the nine they killed at Guru. Adamu said he managed to escape when he screamed after getting hit by the bullet, saying "that was when they thought I had been killed and they abandoned the chase on me."
Another victim, Muhammad Sani, told us at the hospital yesterday that he still had a bullet in his buttocks. It was gathered that the attack on the Dansadau communities by the robbers was in reaction for an attempt by people in the area to flush out bandits who were said to be operating with impunity, killing people and stealing their valuables from them.
According to sources, members of various communities had late in July empowered vigilante groups to go after known criminals and notorious armed robbers, a development that led to the death of dozens of suspects through extra-judicial means. Some of the robbers were slaughtered and set ablaze during the period, it was gathered.
"It was their (the robbers') kingpins who escaped the measure that regrouped and invited their colleagues to attack us," said Malam Muhammad.
However, the Zamfara State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Sanusi Amiru, while confirming the arrest of three vigilante members for participating in the "extra-judicial killing of the robbers," said he did not get a report on the retaliatory attack.
"The commissioner might have been briefed of it, but I'm not aware such thing has occurred because no such report was sent to my desk," he said.
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