LAGOS MARCH 17TH (URHOBOTODAY)-The Delta State Police Commissioner, Mr Ikechukwu Aduba said cultism in the state has reached the extent that pupils in primary school are now actively involved in it.
Disclosing this to LEADERSHIP Sunday in an interview, he said, “They wear red bands on their heads as symbol of identification, and go about terrorising people”.
As a result of the ugly trend, the State Police Command said it has declared war against cultists and cult-related offences in the state warning that, “this Command has zero tolerance for cult-related offences, and any one directly or indirectly involved in it will henceforth be dealt with according to the law”.
Attributing the rising cases of murder in the state to cultism, he said cultism is the mother of armed robbery, kidnapping and other related crimes as one graduates from it into other crimes. Worse still, he said, hardly a day passes by without one person being murdered.
While saying that the task of checking cultism is not the responsibility of the police alone, but also of the society at large, he assured that the Police in the state were on top of the situation.
Giving detailed account of the efforts of the police to curb the menace of cultism in the state, he said in 2012 alone, 46 suspected cultists were arrested; 236 in 2013 and 119 between January 1 and March 11, 2014, adding that, the police in the state are battle-ready to deal with the situation. “We are working round the clock to ensure that Delta State is free from the activities of cultists,” he said.
To check what he called “a dangerous dimension in crime in the state”, the police commissioner appealed to parents and guardians to watch the activities of their children and wards and the company they keep; adding that the courts too should assist in the way they grant bail to cult suspects, as the issue of cultism is a serious crime against humanity.