Vandals Kill 7 DSS Operatives, Escape With Corpses

Seven operatives of the Department of State Services had been reportedly killed in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State. The security operatives were reportedly killed in the Ishawo Road area of Ikorodu on Tuesday during an encounter with suspected pipeline vandals.It was learnt that the incident happened around 7pm on Tuesday.A Punch correspondent was told that the vandals, who were suspected to be
Ijaw youths, made away with the dead operatives’ weapons after killing them. The incident was the second of such attacks within two week by vandals on security operatives in the area. On August 30, four policemen from the Special Anti-Robbery Squad and Owutu Police Division were attacked. Three of the policemen died while the last one was injured.There were, however, different versions of how the DSS operatives were killed. A resident of the area, Jimoh Adebiran, said the operatives had gone to a primary school in the community for an event when they had a confrontation with the vandals.Adebiran narrated, “The whole thing started in a school where the officers had gone for a function. The vandals, who were at the school, thought the DSS men had come to attack them.“There was an exchange of words. Later, the vandals opened fire on the DSS operatives and killed seven of them.”Another resident, Omose Adedipe, said the operatives had come to the community to buy fuel for their official vehicles. Adedipe, a motorcycle rider, said the officers knew that fuel was sold at cheap rates in the community.“They never had any plan to attack the vandals. But the Ijaw youths saw the guns in their vans and mistook their mission for something else, resulting in the bloodshed,” he said.But a police source said the officers were in the community to apprehend the vandals after getting information that they had started to siphon fuel from a broken pipeline belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. He said the men were, however, spotted by the vandals, who opened fire on them.