Farmers at Debiso in the Juabeso Bia district have again petitioned the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and the Minister of the Interior to investigate alleged brutality meted out to them by a police task force who seized their personal belongings last April.
The task force was said to have seized 47 bags of cocoa from a shed belonging to the Cocoa Merchants Ghana Limited at Kwaku Duakrom, near the Ghana/ Ivory Coast border.
A spokesman for the farmers, Kofi Adzingo, District Manager of the company told the GNA that the farmers petitioned the Minister and the IGP a day after the incident, “but up till now we have not heard anything from them”.
He said: “We cannot trace our belongings or the cocoa that were taken away,” adding that the long silence over the matter had heightened the farmers’ fear of another assault on them by the police.
Adzingo said the cocoa, worth about 11.5 million cedis were forcibly taken away under the pretext that they would be smuggled to the Ivory Coast. He mentioned Inspector A. Yeboah as the leader of the police team from Sekondi that carried out the operation.
Mr Adzingo said he and the farmers were severely beaten and his motorbike damaged when he dared to question the action of the policemen.
The farmers had also appealed to the District Superintendent of Police at Asawinso on the matter but no action was been taken, according to him.
Deputy Commissioner F.K. Agyemang, Western Regional Police Commander said the alleged incident occurred on April 1, this year, when he had not been posted to the region, but promised to have it investigated.
He confirmed that a task force made up of policemen and staff of COCOBOD had been carrying out exercises in the area to combat smuggling of cocoa and illegal felling of timber trees.
Source: GhanaWeb
