One person has been shot as a combined team of police and Forestry Commission rapid response team move to flush out armed illegal miners who invaded the Jimira Forest Reserve three days ago.
The team were attacked by armed heavily built men later identified as persons invited by the Ashanti Regional Security Liason Officer, Capt. Rtd. Mohammed Jabari to assist in an operation.
The team comprising 34 policemen drawn from the Ashanti region/Nkawie division and 19 rapid response forest guards acted on a Joynews alarm of an invasion of Compartment 13 of the Jimira forest reserve by armed illegal miners.
Midway into the operation they were confronted by 20 heavily built men armed with pump action guns and machetes at Amangoase close to Adobewura.
The team tells Joynews one of them aimed at a policeman and another attempted to slash one of the policemen with a machete.
Police shot him in the leg and the team managed to disarm them.
The Ashanti regional Security Liason Officer, Capt. Rtd Mohammed Jabari who the team met enroute to the site told Joynews he was the one who invited the armed men to assist in flushing out the illegal miners.
“I also read the Joynews alarm on the invasion of the Jimira forest reserve and made plans to go there and arrest the situation. I invited Alhassan to bring some boys to assist us. I was not at the scene but when I got there I saw they were having a confrontation with the police and one has been shot.” He told Erastus Asare Donkor.
“I learnt when they met the police, one policeman clocked his gun and the boys also raised the machete.” He added.
The injured he says is undergoing surgery at the Komfo Anokye Teaching hospital in Kumasi.
He described the attack on the team as a misunderstanding.
The Jimira and Offin Shelter belt Forest reserves have come under severe attack by illegal miners.
Recently the IGP conducted a raid to flush out the illegal miners but they returned three days ago, invading the Bonteso section.
The police/forestry team managed to arrest four suspects, retrieved two pump action guns and impounded four excavators.
Early this year, a member of the Forestry Commission’s Rapid Response team who went on patrol duties in the Apemkro section of the Offin Shelter belt was slashed in the knee with a machete by armed thugs who had invaded the reserve.
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