A kidnap suspect was recently burnt to death by angry mob in Ekori, Yakurr LGA of Cross River State.

Orient Weekend reports that effort by the police to prevent the suspect from being burnt failed as the police unit that arrived the scene was chased away by the rampaging youths.

According to a source, “the suspect, about 25 years old was caught by some youths in the village, with a pupil he had kid­napped. The youths raised alarm and many youths of the village converged and started beating the kidnap suspect.

“The youths, not satisfied with beating the suspect, quickly dropped some tyres on his body and lit him up to burn to death.”

He said that the reason the police were not allowed to inter­vene was that the youths were not happy with the operation of the police in the area.

“On several occasions, crimes were perpetrated in the commu­nity and the police never did any­thing about it. Why would they now show up when we were able to catch a criminal,” he said.

Effort to reach the Cross River State Police Public Relations Officer proved abortive as at the time of filing this report. However, Orient Weekend gathered that several members of the communi­ty expressed disgust at the “jungle justice” meted out to the suspect.

Taking to Facebook, a member of the community wrote con­cerning the incident, “the jungle justice is unacceptable and that person should have been handed over to the police to be charged to court.

“Yes, my family fell victim to ritual killing two weeks ago when my nephew was grabbed in Calabar and killed, his manhood, tongue and teeth removed but regardless I will never support resort to self help and jungle jus­tice,” he said.

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