An 80 year old man is in the grips of the Akropong District Police Command in the Eastern Region, for shooting a gun into the face of a 34 year old woman during the funeral rite of the late Okuapehemaa, Nana Dokua on Friday.
The suspect, Francis Ani aimed his gun into the sky and accidentally shot the victim, Ama Darkwa who was standing on a veranda of a storey building watching a procession of chiefs to the funeral grounds.
The victim was rushed to the Tetteh Quarshie Memorial Hospital at Akuapem Mampong where she’s receiving treatment.
The Akropong District Police Commander Chief Superintendent Charles Kofi Adu in an interview with Kasapa News stated that the suspect is assisting the police in investiagtions.
According to him, the police ahead of the funeral rites met with the chiefs and discussed the important issue of firing of musketry to ensure an incident free event.
“The chiefs produced persons who will fire the musketry and the police held a training session for them. Its unfortunate that the man who shot the victim was not part of the training. We asked that whoever was trained by us should hang an ID card we issued them for easy identification. We actually inspected the bullets they were to fire and eventually provided them with the type of bullet we wanted them to fire at the funeral because we didn’t want anyone to use live ammunition to cause any problems.”
Chief Superintendent Charles Kofi Adu added that the chiefs were also warned not to allow anyone not trained by the police to join their retinue and fire a gun, as in the event of an unfortunate incident, that chief will be held responsible.
“We’ve been able to identify the chief in whose company the suspect fired the gun and we’re going to deal with him drastically.”
The final funeral rite of the late Okuapehemaa started Thursday at the forecourt of the Akropong Akuapem Chief Palace.
She will be buried on Saturday. The late Nana Dokua was born on 1922 and died in 2016 shortly after the burial of the late Okuapehene, Oseedeyo Addo Dankwa.
