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Details emerge on six suspects gunned down in shs500m foiled robbery at Acacia Mall

Two of the six suspected robbers who were gunned down at Kamwokya near Acacia Mall in Kampala on Monday evening (Photo/Courtesy)

Kampala, (UG): Police investigations are underway on the six men who were gunned down by officers in what was suspected to be a foiled robbery of cash amounting to UGX 500 million on Monday evening.

In a statement released by Police Spokesperson ACP Rusoke Kituuma, police said the intelligence-led operation was successfully executed after a tip-off that the suspects were targeting to rob a businessman, who had withdrawn money from Stanbic Bank branch at Acacia Mall in Kisementi, Kampala.

“The suspects tracked their target from Acacia Mall, aiming to seize a cash bag, but were intercepted at several sites, including Total Acacia and Tagore Road,” Kituuma said.

The suspects, who were travelling on motorcycles, were neutralized during the operation. Police recovered two motorcycles, two pangas, and pepper spray from the scene. “Six of them were neutralized,” Kituuma confirmed, adding that investigations into the case are ongoing.

Kituuma’s statement rhymed with an earlier statement by Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson, SSP Patrick Onyango who said “The intelligence staged their personnel to wait for the thugs. After the client withdrew the money, the thugs were monitored and that is when the disruptive operation started.”

The first suspects, according to SSP Onyango, were shot and killed on the spot near Total Petrol Station at Acacia Mall, and others were gunned down at a taxi stage a few metres away and on Mawanda Road.

“The suspects have been on our watch list and they have been robbing people,” Mr Onyango said, without the exact identities of the neutralized suspects.

Contradicting eyewitness counts

Some of the witnesses who spoke to this publication said the suspects had surrendered to police but officers on the mission went ahead to neutralize them, by shooting on the head.

Other accounts of the incident, off the police record and official statement, indicated that the killed suspects were 8 in number not six as authorities reported.

A source who spoke on condition of anonymity to express freely said the 8 were mostly in their early 20s and were S.4 vacists waiting for UCE results from last year’s exams.

“They killed 8 not six, all of them were youths and just finished S.4. They used to steal from people and have been on wanted since 2023,” the source told this website. “One of them might have sold them out as he had just returned from prison in December when the colleagues disappeared on the run in 2023 over cash robbery still.”

DailyExpress could not independently verify the report as put forward by the source by the time this story went published. Efforts to reach out to police authorities including the KMP Spokesperson Patrick Onyango were also futile with repeated calls and engagement unanswered by press time.

Alarming Robbery Cases

Cases of gangs on motorcycles attacking people carrying cash to and from the bank are high in Kampala City. For example, early this year, a Kampala businessman lost Shs30.7m in a robbery attack that happened on January 04 at around 10:30 am.

The thugs took his money, ATM cards and other vital identifications during the incident which happened at 5th Street Junction, Mutabazi Lane in Kampala’s Central Division. Mr Baraka had withdrawn the money from a KCB Bank branch on 6th Street when he was confronted by the robbers armed with a panga and riding on motorcycles.

Midway year, a gang of 10 on motorcycles attacked a tour and travel operator, who was carrying money, beat him up and then grabbed his bag that contained Shs2.2 million before fleeing the scene on a busy Kampala road. This was at a junction called Eso Corner just a few metres from the Parliament at midday.

The suspects reportedly trailed Mr Joshi Keshav from his workplace at Crown House in Kampala City while he was using a boda boda cycle until he was stuck in a traffic jam near Victoria University on Kampala Road.

In March 2021, four thugs attacked Kannankutty Krisnamaham and robbed him of Euro 100,000 (about Shs376.3m) near Kitgum House junction on Jinja Road in broad daylight as members of the public and police officers looked on.

And in 2020, thugs riding motorcycles trailed Ahmed Hassan, an assistant manager of Amal Forex Bureau, and Ismael Mohammad, the cashier of Amal Forex, from DTB Bank Equatorial Mall where they had withdrawn Shs 380 million. The suspects jumped off their motorcycles, surrounded the victims and robbed them.

This could be the first case in which the police have been able to intercept the suspects in such a crime before carrying out the robbery in five years. The swift action by the police highlights the importance of intelligence-driven operations in combating organized crime and ensuring public safety.

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