The police in Ho have refuted claims they prevented the health walk of a pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) group called Volta For Change, Saturday.
According to officials of the Police Department, they invited the leaders of the group to clarify the true intention of their health walk and not to stop them as it is alleged.
Volta Regional Commander of the Ghana Police Service, PeterKin Yentumi Gyinae said the rationale behind the invitation was genuine and was to iron out some outstanding issues with the leadership of the group.
He said they [police officials] picked intelligence that the group’s intended activity was to embark on a demonstration and not a health walk as it stated in the letter given to the police.
The group served the police a letter stating their intention to embark on a health walk on Saturday, March 28 as a way of registering their commitment to vote for the NPP in the 2016 elections.
However, it was reported that police officials stopped the group’s walk in the early hours of Saturday based on what is alleged to be the “orders of the Regional Minister, Helen Adjoa Ntosso”.
Speaking to JOYNEWS, the Convener of the group, Eyram Doe disclosed that he heard one of the police officials assigned to protect them whispering to a colleague that an “order from above” demands they stop the exercise.
“The Ghana Police Service, in their usual 'order from above' nonsense, sought to halt, intimidate and aggressively threaten us in an attempt to block a peaceful health march, details of which had extensively been discussed and agreed upon with them”, a statement released to JOYNEWS read.
However, DCOP PeterKin Gyinae has refuted these claims saying the police has no such intention but only sought for the right thing to be done.
''When they said they were going on a health walk we agreed. It [later] appeared in the Daily guide that they were going to [embark] on a demonstration. So we called them and they promised it was not going to be a demonstration but rather a health walk”, he said.
DCOP Gyinae blamed the leadership of the group for failing to disclose their real intention to the police adding they are there to protect them.
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