Youth vandalise Tamale radio station
A group of young men yesterday morning vandalised the premises of Justice FM, a radio station in Tamale, following panellists’ discussion of the circumstances leading to the murder of a 26-year-old vulcaniser, Abdul-Rashid Mustapha, at Aboabo, a suburb of Tamale, last Monday.
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A motorbike and four cars belonging to some members of staff of the station were burnt in the process.
No casualties were reported and no arrest has been made yet.
It took the intervention of a combined team of the police and the military to disperse the marauding youth and maintain law and order in the vicinity of the station at Lamashegu, another suburb of Tamale.
Shops and offices closed
The disturbances led to the temporary closure of offices and shops located in the area. A cluster of schools around the radio station had to close down to ensure the safety of the pupils and the students.
The situation has since returned to normalcy, with people going about their businesses and vocations in the suburb.
According to the Northern Regional Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Ebenezer Tetteh, “our men, with support from our military colleagues, have been able to douse the flame”.
He indicated that as discussions on the station began, the family and friends of the deceased noticed the presence of a member of one of the factions alleged to have masterminded the murder of Mustapha on the panel.
The group subsequently invaded the station to allegedly attack the panel member who, they claimed, had made some unsavoury remarks about the deceased.
When they realised that the management of the station had locked the panellist up in one of their offices, the angry group vented their spleen on the motorbike and the vehicles parked on the premises of the radio station by setting them on fire.
The arrival of personnel of the Fire Service prevented further damage to other property and the one-storey building housing the station.
Mustapha was one of the two persons allegedly murdered in Tamale on Monday. The other is a 29-year-old network engineer, Naziru Alhassan, who was allegedly shot several times by an unidentified assailant at his residence on Saturday evening.