A Legal practitioner and law lecturer at the Central University says a decision by the Inspector General of Police to withdraw police personnel from Donkorkrom in the Eastern Region is unlawful.
Yaw Oppong said the police are responsible for the restoration of law and order and that regardless of the situation, a withdrawal from the town was clearly not an option.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Mr Oppong told show host Kojo Yankson that while the police are also providing services aimed at preventing harm, they are also concerned about the risk of harm to themselves and that might have informed the withdrawal.
But “I don’t think that it is lawful for the police themselves to decide that ‘we are not willing to continue with the provision of the service.’”
He argued that “if there was no police station there perhaps a different argument could have been made that maybe there is no appropriate facility to establish a police station there but once there is a provision of police station, it is part of their duty to prevent crime or to ensure that there is enforcement of law.”
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The Inspector General of Police has withdrawn the services of all personnel from Donkorkrom.
Mr. John Kudalor made the move after residents in the town torched the police post and vehicles belonging to the service.
The protesters were demanding answers after two police officers who had been arrested for their involvement in the robbery of a GCB bank bullion van escaped from detention.
The residents believed the two officers deliberately left off the hook. They, therefore, staged the protest to demand their rearrest and a transfer of all personnel from the town.
Mr Oppong believes the unrest stresses the need for re-enforced police presence to serve as a deterrent to would-be criminals.
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“Not just temporarily but there should be a permanent police station, to remove it from there would have amounted to the police refusing to comply with the appropriate provision of their own framework.”
He said although he sympathizes with the police personnel, the IGP’s decision is out of place.
He called on the local assembly should quickly reconstruct the police post.
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