NO fewer than 1,150 cattle rustlers, bandits and kidnappers swore by the Quran and the Bible in the last two weeks in Kaduna that they will no longer engage in criminal activities again.
The investigation revealed that 750 of them swore to Quran and Bible on Saturday. This efforts by the new commissioner of police in Kaduna state, Austin Iwar started about two weeks ago when he started engaging different community leaders to persuade deviants in their areas to abandon crime and embrace government’s amnesty programme.
Findings gathered that two weeks ago a set of 400 bandits and kidnappers swore by the Quran renouncing crime.
Addressing newsmen after the ceremony, the state commissioner of police, Mr Austin Iwar said the repentant criminals took advantage of the window of opportunity opened by the government and the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris.
He explained that apart from renouncing violence, the repentant criminals will also hand in their weapons to the government.
“I assure you very soon we will begin to recover most of these arms, as some of them have volunteered to hand over their arms back, but not in public.”
“One of the strategies we decided to adopt is to see how we can get across to some communities leaders in the context of community policing programme we are doing.
“If you want to solve a problem you have to work with people that created the problem; we also held series of meetings with hunters as a prelude to the series of activities we call Renouncing Violence Strategies.”
An excited Commissioner of police Iwar said the exercise, when sustained will significantly reduce crime in the state.
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