The Member of Parliament for Bawku Central Constituency, Mahama Ayariga, has added his voice to condemnations of the brutalities meted out by soldiers to residents in Garu and Bugri in the Upper East Region.
He described the soldiers’ action as “barbaric and unacceptable” in the current dispensation.
On Saturday, October 28, the military launched an operation to seize weapons in the two areas after a team of five counter-terrorism intelligence officers deployed by the Ministry of National Security to Garu on a critical, special operation was attacked on Tuesday, October 24 by an irate youth group armed with AK 47 rifles, machetes and other weapons.
The weekend’s operation led to injuries to some residents who are receiving treatment in health facilities.
But the Bawku MP said following perennial calls he received the dawn of Saturday, he reached out to the National Security Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah, who denied knowledge of the operation.
The Minister was in Europe then, the Bawku Central MP said.
As a result, Mr Ayariga is calling for a full-scale inquiry into the incident.
“I will join my fellow Members of Parliament from the Upper East Region to call for a full scale inquiry into what happened,” he indicated in a statement on Monday, October 30.
“I recall being involved in a discussion with the Minister for National Security a few days earlier about some national security operatives who had been stopped in Garu and handed over to the police.
“I saw media reports of alleged shooting of the vehicle used by the national security operatives by unknown persons in the Garu area.”
He stressed that “if the incident is a retaliation by the soldiers, this will be most unfortunate and unacceptable in today’s Ghana and he has to get to the bottom of the matter and hold the military personnel involved in this dastardly act accountable”.