Irate Mob Butcher Undergraduate Phone Snatcher in Calabar

A suspected phone snatcher said to be an undergraduate student of the University of Calabar was savagely butchered by a mob at about 9 pm on Wednesday for allegedly snatching a phone and a handbag from a lady.

The undergraduate phone thief said to be operating with another who managed to escape was alleged to have boarded a taxi at Marian Road to Calabar South and when they got to Goldie by Atu Street junction, they asked the taxi driver to stop as they were about to alight and while stepping down from the taxi, one of them grabbed the handbag of the lady sitting next to him while the other snatched her phone. “When the lady raised alarm, some people chased the boys and one managed to escape while the other hid himself in the gutter in front of my house”. Dr Emmanuel Effiong Ene, a lecturer at the Cross River University, Calabar who witnessed the incident said.

According to the lecturer when one of the thieves escaped, the mob came after the one who hid himself in the gutter and descended on him with stones and cudgels.”I heard someone scratch a machete on the ground and soon after the boy began to scream as he was being dealt machete blows”.

The machete cuts hacked off the thief’s hands which left him dead and was subsequently dragged from the gutter in front of No1 Gibson Street and dumped at the junction between Goldie and Gibson with blood splashing all the way. “Some people bought tyres from the nearby motor mechanic workshop to set him ablaze but only his head and eyes caught fire”. An eye witness told crossriverwatch.

Large crowds gathered early in the morning to behold the gory sight while residents of Gibson Street and the adjoining streets stayed indoors or hurried off to work to avoid police arrest or interrogation.

A Deputy Superintendent of Police who gave his name simply as Edem, led the team of policemen to take the decapitated body away at about 9am this morning. He said the body would be taken to the General Hospital Calabar for autopsy. “It is against the law to just bury anybody who is killed in mob action without post Morten examination because in the event of any arrest and subsequent legal action, the cause of death has to be presented as evidence”.