Residents of a community in Enugu State have accused the police in the area of the extrajudicial killing of a 27-year-old apprentice mechanic, one Okey Chinweike.

The police were further alleged to have dumped the remains of Chinweike in a stream.

The incident was said to have happened at Onuato in Ogui Nike, Enugu North Local Government Area of the state on Tuesday.

Chinweike, who hailed from Ikwo in Ebonyi State, was an apprentice motor mechanic with one Obiora, whose shop was located on the Presidential Road by the Onuato junction.

It was gathered that the victim, who recently buried his only brother, had gone to a football viewing centre, a few poles from the shop, to watch a match after the close of work when he met his death.

Sources said the deceased was on his way home after the match when policemen from the Ogui Police Station came to raid the area. They officers were alleged to have shot indiscriminately causing pandemonium.

“There was commotion and people were running in different directions. However, the innocent man, who didn’t know the roads very well, because he was not living in the neighbourhood, joined the people running and he was shot by one of the policemen,” the Punch Newspaper reported quoting an unnamed eyewitness.

“It was after the raid that Chinweike was declared missing. But on Thursday morning, some scavengers saw a floating body in the stream and ran to the neighbourhood to inform the residents.

“Immediately, the incident was reported at the Ogui Police Division by the local vigilante group. Some policemen came and after seeing the floating body, they left and never came back. The body was discovered around 10am but it was around 5pm that his co-apprentice brought it out from the stream after the only surviving sister came and identified him.”

Chinweike’s colleagues described his death as painful and demanded justice for him. They alleged te deceased was shot in the head.

One of the deceased’s colleagues, who gave his name as Emeka Ezeh, said,

“When we brought out his body from the stream, there was blood clot in his nose and head. There was equally a hole in his head, suggesting that he was shot in the head.”

Although Chinweike was buried the same Thursday in his home town in Ikwo, his colleagues want a thorough investigation into the incident with a view to fishing out the trigger-happy police personnel to face justice.

They described Chinweike as a gentle and easy-going young man, who neither smoke nor drink alcohol, and wondered why the police would kill him.

The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Ebere Amaraizu, said he had yet to receive information on it, but noted that whoever killed Chinweike would be fished out.

“When the police send you on an assignment and if you go outside what you were asked to do, you will face the consequences,” he said.