The Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice( CHRSJ) has indicted the State Criminal Investigation Department for illegal detention, arrest and distortion of helpless people in Panti, Yaba, Lagos State.
The group has disclosed in a press release signed by its Executive Chairman, Adeniyi A. Sulaiman. It also maintained that there are a lot of bad personnel to be flushed out in the system. Hence, the need for relevant authorities to investigate the system.
The civil rights group asserted that the method being used by operatives of the department is usually to move around their area of operation and source phone numbers of helpless residents of the state with a view to luring them to their offices where they are levelled with several allegations that can never be proved.
“The leadership of the department usually dispatch their operatives out to source for numbers of innocent victims wherever they find them. They will now call them on TRUECALLER platform to be able to know their names.
“From there on, they will then generate spurious petitions, which would be written by some faceless individuals. This would then form the basis for the invitation of the innocent citizens who would come forward to their station.
“These police officers usually demand an atrocious amount of money ranging from N150,000 upward depending on the calibre, status and pedigree of the so-called accused. There are so many innocent people languishing in the cells of the department, which we want the authorities to look at,” the group wrote.
