Unknown gunmen attacked the Obowo divisional police headquarters in Imo on Monday.

The police spokesman in Imo, CSP Michael Abattam, stated in Owerri that the assailants approached the station from an “ungoverned forest at the rear.”

The police claimed nobody was killed but disclosed that a police operative was shot.

A source in the community, who requested anonymity, said two persons were feared killed in the attack.

“The attack started around 2:00 a.m. and lasted for about three hours. We heard the sounds of various firearms and suspected dynamite during the attack. We do not know whether the assailants took away police weapons as they usually did,’’ he said.

Mr Abattam added that they threw petrol bombs and improvised explosive devices that fell on the transit camp behind the station and a parked vehicle.

“Police operatives and some of the command’s technical teams engaged the hoodlums in a fierce gun duel preventing them from gaining entry to the station. In the process, they forced the hoodlums into retreating into the forest with various degrees of bullet wounds,” explained the police. “The police operatives gave them a hot chase, and while combing the bush, three undetonated explosives, four expended AK47 bullets and five live cartridges were recovered.”

Also, the police said 33 expended cartridges, two masks, one pump-action gun and a motorised sawing machine were recovered.

The acting police commissioner Maman Giwa, who visited the scene, commended the operatives for repelling the attack.

Mr Giwa appealed to Imo residents to continue to give the police timely and credible information about criminals and their activities and to report any person seen treating bullet wounds within the community to the nearest police station.

Monday’s attack brought the number of police divisional headquarters attacked in Imo in March to four.

Earlier in the month, gunmen attacked Orsu, Oru East and Umuguma police divisional headquarters.

(NAN)