Police kill four armed robbers

Police intelligence outsmarted four robbers whose plan to rob a shop and a Puma Filling Station at Kanengo in Lilongwe’s Area 25 Township was turned inside out when crack police marksmen killed all the robbers after they shot first to commence their robbery.

The professional police action cast the law-enforcers as deserved heroes in the eyes of hundreds of people who witnessed the shoot-out.

National police spokesperson Rhoda Manjolo confirmed the incident, saying the police had had intelligence that the filling station would be targeted after 2pm.

She said after the operation, the robbers’ bodies were taken to Kamuzu Central Hospital where their relatives will identify the deceased.

Manjolo refused to disclose details of how the robbers were cornered and killed. She merely said the police had been “waiting for them”.

One woman eye-witness who was fuelling her vehicle at the filling station, said she saw the gang of robbers, in a silver touring car, moving in attack positions and firing in the air—apparently to scare the people as they began their mission.

“Then a group of police officers descended on the scene and took on the robbers in an exchange of fire. My biggest excitement, as I saw the action, is that there was apparently a woman commanding officer who bravely took part in the counter-action,” she stated.

Nation Publications Limited’s debt collector Steve Kapengule was only about 30 metres away from the scene, on the Mzimba-Lilongwe Road, as he headed back to the city after the TAMA offices by the roadside.

“I heard shooting and I saw people scattering in all directions as I approached the filling station. Most of those people returned to the scene, just as hurriedly as they had left, and they started showering congratulations on the police, when it became clear that the police officers had foiled the robbery.

“Almost everyone could tell that the police had laid in wait for sometime before a vehicle carrying the robbers drove in at the filling station at about 2.30pm. Clearly, the robbers had walked into a trap because the moment they advanced and fired the early shots, the police officers –-most of them in civilian clothes (detectives)—responded; in no time, the robbers were lying dead in a mangled heap,” Kapengule stated.

He said he came away from the incident convinced that if police officers are given tips by members of the public, the law-enforcers could thwart the rising incidents of armed robbery and other insecurity incidents.

Recently, there have been several armed robberies, where millions of Kwacha have been stolen and policemen and some civilians were killed and injured.