Upper East Regional Director of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Abdulai Jalaldeen is calling on the police service to arrest all those who were at the scene where a young woman was stripped naked and assaulted.
Mr. Jalaaldeen contends that the laws of the country mandate citizens to take steps to prevent the commission of crime if they notice one going on.
He said although some of the people at the scene did not participate in the molestation of the woman, their decision to watch on without taking any action to prevent the others from perpetrating the crime makes them culpable.
He, therefore, wants the police to arrest and make them face the full rigours of the law so as to serve as deterrent to others.
“Anybody who was found at that scene should be arrested. Because the laws even provide that if you find somebody committing a crime, you should be seen to be taking steps to prevent the commission of the crime. So if we have those people gathered there, what were they doing there?”
He added, “So if they were seen to be preventing the commission of that crime then they would have been exonerated but if you were not there to stop the commission of that crime then you should be arrested and prosecuted so that we will know this era and age, we cannot be taking mob action against people”.
The regional CHRAJ boss’s call comes on the back of the arrest of 4 persons in connection with the incident.
The 4, all males, are said to be part of a mob seen in a viral stripping naked a young woman of the Fulbe extraction and assaulting her at Kulipelga in the Bawku West District.
The incident is reported to be part of a series of reprisal attacks targeted at people of the said extraction over allegation of rape levelled against one of them.
The police say they are making arrangement to provide psychological assistance to the victim while on a manhunt for the rest of accomplices.
