The Ghana Armed Forces has said that the operation they carried out in some areas of Ashaiman was simply a swoop in a manhunt for some criminals and was not carried out for retaliation.
Following the assassination of a young soldier, Trooper Imoro Sherrif, near Ashaiman-Taifa on Saturday dawn, a savage military invasion of some of Ashaiman occurred on Tuesday dawn.
Footages shared on social media show armed military personnel brutalising residents.
According to GAF, “the military operation, which was sanctioned by the Military High Command, was NOT to avenge the killing of the soldier but rather to fish out the perpetrators of the heinous crime.”
They added that their “swoop” had led to the arrest of about 184 suspects aged between 21 and 47 years old and have they have since handed them over to the military police who will subsequently send them over to the Ghana Police Service for screening and further action.
According to GAF, during the course of their operation they had seized 29 slabs and 57 mini slabs of suspected Indian hemp and amnesia among other forms of the narcotics.
“The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) also wishes to place on record that the swoop was not targeted at innocent civilians but was an intelligence–led operation conducted on suspected hideouts of criminals and crime-prone areas in the general area,” they stressed.
“GAF however acknowledges that regrettably some innocent persons might have been caught up in the operation and consequently suffered some distress due to the location they found themselves at the time,” they added.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Armed Forces has urged the general public to “provide useful information, support the security agencies in weeding out criminals and miscreants from our communities and to desist from shielding and conniving with such suspects in order to the curb criminal activities in the country.”