Barely few hours to Eid-el Fitri celebration that climaxed the 30-day- Muslim Ramadan fasting, operatives of the Nigerian army and the police clashed yesterday, resulting in the death of one soldier and four policemen. .
Investigation revealed that the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in charge of Zuru Local Government Area (LGA), had gone out in company of a lady to cool off at a drinking joint in the town when the incident happened.
The report had it that the DPO, after cooling off, was driving back home, when a fast driven car overtook him in a reckless manner which provoked his anger and he in return sped off and over took the car and blocked it at the front.
However, inside the car that overtook the DPO were two soldiers from the 242 Light Tank Battalion of the Nigeria Army in the town.
An argument ensued between the DPO and the two soldiers who were said to be in mufti at the time and the police officer was in uniform.
But this did not deter the soldiers as they pounced on the DPO and rained blows on him, giving him the beating of his life.
This scenario, according to reports, drew the attention of two other policemen who were mounting security at one of the first generation banks in town, who, on getting to the spot, they discovered that it was their senior officer that was being manhandled by the soldiers.
This led one of the policemen to fire a shot that hit and killed one of the soldiers instantly.
It was reported further that when the area commander in charge of the zone heard of the ugly incident, he took four of his men with the intention to go for a fence mending mission with the commanding officer of the battalion.
