Taoreed Ashimiyu (24) and Kayode Jolade (34) were two successful pickpocket partners shuttling between Maryland and Mile 12 Markets in buses. Their targets were commuters’ mobile phones and purses. Most times, they work together and share the loot as soon as they felt they have made enough money for the day. They stood at bus stops monitoring commuters with fat and bulging pockets.

They stealthily remove these valuables while commuters rush to board buses. While one did the picking, the other kept the loot till the end of the day’s work.

Unknowingly for the duo, Maryland school pupils who had spotted them in one of the operations had mobilised themselves to lynch them on this fateful day.

As fate would have it, the pupils had all converged at the Maryland bus stop when they spotted them on operation. In their multitude, the pupils launched at Ashimiyu in an attempt to lynch him.

Seeing the surging crowd, Ashimiyu attempted to escape to the other side of the road but ran into an oncoming truck, which knocked him off the road only to be rescued by Rapid Response Squad operatives who were monitoring the unfolding scenery.

His accomplice, Jolade, who equally took to his heels on sensing danger, was similarly arrested by onlookers, who heard they were pickpockets.

Both suspects explained, what happened, their past operations and how they spent their loots among other things.