IRATE youths yesterday at Uromi, Edo State went on rampage, setting ablaze the Divisional Police Station and police residential quarters in the area to protest the killing of a student by a police officer during a routine stop-and-search operation.

At least about 25 inmates detained at the Police Station for various offences were reportedly set free by the ranpaging youths, while police vehicles in the vicinity were set ablaze. Commercial activities in the area was disrupted and banks shut with the youths calling for the head of the Divisional Police Officer in Uromi, Esan North-East local Government, under whose command the trigger-happy officer is stationed.

Although normalcy seemed to have returned to the city with the presence of fully armed anti-riot policemen, at the time of this report yesterday, the acting Commissioner of Police, Mr. Philemon Leha visited the scene of the incident and ordered the arrest of the killer cop and the arrest of persons identified as the leaders of the youths involved in the carnage.

Trouble, it was gathered, started around 1.30pm on Wednesday on Wire road, Agbor junction area when the driver of a commercial vehicle conveying passengers from Benin City to Uromi failed to pay a bribe of N40.

The driver according eyewitness account, in an attempt to drive away against the order of the officer, was shot at by a police Constable but the bullet missed the driver and pierced the body of the bus killing instantly the student. While the other passengers, it was gathered, raised an alarm on the critical state of the student, the other officers allegedly descended on the driver without notice of the alarm raised.

Vanguard however gathered that other drivers passing by saw the situation and quickly contacted the Union members, who in turn mobilized themselves and other street urchins with the aim of helping out their colleague and hold the officer responsible for the death of the passenger.

An eyewitness told Vanguard that, "we were surprised that these drivers were running up and down and we suspected something had happened. A few minutes later, we saw many of them wielding weapons descending on the police station. The next thing was confusion."

It was gathered that the news in town was that the driver of the vehicle and a student were shot dead.

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