Kumasi Mayor calls for calm after Islamic SHS incident

The Mayor for Kumasi, Sam Pyne, has called for calm after the confrontation between the Police and students of the Islamic SHS in Kumasi.

The Police allegedly used tear gas to disperse students who were protesting at the Islamic Senior High School at Abrepo in the Ashanti Region on Monday.

Over 25 students reportedly sustained injuries and were taken to the hospital protesting frequent vehicular knockdowns in front of the school.

Although reports that led to the confrontation between the police and the students is unknown, the students reportedly started the protest from the school campus and proceeded to the main entrance of the school and some of them allegedly pelted stones and other missiles at vehicles that passed in front of the school.

The students reportedly blocked the main Abrepo junction to Barekese road to obstruct vehicular movement.

Media reports suggest that the demonstration was necessitated after a female teacher who was moving out of campus had her vehicle run into by another vehicle on the main road just as she entered the road.

In an interview with host of Atinka FM’s AM Drive Kaakyire Ofori Ayim, Mayor for Kumasi, Sam Pyne called on the general public to desist from using protests, demonstrations and other acts of violence to seek solutions.

“I am a firm believer that violence should be out of the question when one is looking for a solution. What happened shouldn’t have happened and I hope that henceforth people will seek redress using the appropriate quarters,” Sam Pyne added.

The Executive Director for African Center for Security, Emmanuel Kutin, has also called out the Police for exhibiting a lack of crowd control ethics in the incident.

“Our Police as a Service lack crowd control management ethics. If you see an aggrieved group of people doing something, you don’t use force. Already something is pushing them to do what they are doing. In the case of the school, there have been consistent accidents in front of the school, they have complained and nothing has been done about it,” Emmanuel Kutin told also told Kaakyire Ofori Ayim.