Alleged car thieves escape lynching in Nkwen Bamenda

In case they survive, Sunday, September 28 will not be forgotten in a hurry as two car thieves whose names could not be ascertained by press time were given the beating of their lives by the population of Nkwen Mile 3 in Bamenda.

The thieves are said to have stolen a Toyota Carina E Car from Douala after killing the driver in a scuffle.

They are reported to have driven successfully from Douala to Bamenda despite the numerous police check points.

The owner of the car after burying the driver who happens to be a boy from the North West Region decided to come back to Bamenda to trace the car after being hinted that the thieves must have come from Bamenda.

That fateful Sunday morning at about 10 am, the owner spotted his car being used by two boys strolling in town.

He hired a motorbike and followed them till they got to Nkwen Mile 3, just around the S Bend Junction; still on the motor bike, he held the steering of the car and struggled with the driver.

The fight ended with the car running in to a newly constructed roadside drainage, thereby blocking traffic.

On coming vehicles and passersby stopped to know what the matter was and they were informed that the guys in question were car thieves.

Immediately that information was disclosed, mob justice took center stage as stones, iron rods, cement blocks and large sticks came from the blues and it was beatings and beast treatment.

The brother of the assassinated driver wept bitterly as he saw his brother’s killers going through rough times in the hands of the Nkwen boys.

Then old tyres started coming in with petrol for the final action at Bamenda in the presence of some security officers despite resistance from the police.

A few minutes before the roasting time, the sirens of the Intervention Unit of the Police were heard and the hopes of the two alleged thieves were a little bit rekindled while the population began grumbling and blaming themselves for not 'wasting' them before the police arrived.

When the police came, everybody gave way and they carried away the half dead bodies of the alleged in their patrol car to an unknown destination.

By press time the conditions of the alleged thieves were not known though from this reporter’s eyewitness opinion, the chances of their survival are less than 20%.

Inhabitants of Nkwen, popularly known as Baghdad, have said they are doing everything to give the area a new image far from the image of being a place of high insecurity and the center of theft in Bamenda.