Irate Lamashegu Youth Torch Fire Officer’s House With Molotov Cocktail

The home of a fire officer who was mistaken for a police officer was set ablaze by irate youth of Lamashegu in the Northern Region on Tuesday, according to reports.

The officer who sustained fire injury, as a result, was only spared after he had escaped the fire because the angry youth had realized that he was not their target in a reprisals attack on some trigger-happy police officers who unleashed mayhem on the residents by shooting at them with live bullets in a brutal force that killed one resident and injured almost a dozen others.

According to reports seen by Whatsup News, the attack had been carried out with Molotov cocktail, aka petrol bombs by the angry youth who were out on a vendetta.

The attack occurred at about 2:30 am on Tuesday while the officer was asleep in his chamber and hall self-contained apartment. The youth had besieged the apartment lit the improvised bombs and flung them into the apartment believing they were roasting the targeted Police officer alive.

Unbeknownst to them, however, the Police officer had vacated that apartment and taken residency in another one within the compound house and that in his place, an officer of the Ghana Fire Service had taken residency.

According to reports, the fire had started in the kitchen and then spread to other parts of the house, including the bedroom where the fire officer was asleep.

The victim managed to escape the burning house, but not without sustaining injuries. It was when he came out that the attackers realized he was not the police officer they were hoping to lynch.

None of the assailants had been identified as of Tuesday.

Lamashegu earlier in the week suffered a breach of peace after Police and the youth in the area had been involved in a confrontation. The confrontation had been sparked when the Police had shot at and chased the driver of an unregistered vehicle into the palace of Naa Lamashe, the chief of Lamashegu.

In response to the pelting of stones by the town’s youth, the Police had fired live bullets killing a bystander, a JHS graduate, Abdul Hakeem and wounding many including another JHS two pupil, Tawfic Abdul-Razak, whose mouth was blown off.

The Ghana Police has since interdicted six officers involved in the shootings.

Meanwhile, Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Shani Alhassan Saibu, visited the community to urge for calm.