BY TONY EDIKE
ENUGU—MR Emeka Ochin, Special Assistant on Political Matters to the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekeremadu, was on Tuesday arrested and detained at the 9th Mile Police Station, Enugu, for allegedly torturing and inflicting injuries on a sculptor and his two sons.

Vanguard gathered that the incident which reportedly attracted a huge crowd of villagers, occurred at Enugu-Ezeachi village in Ukana Community, Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State.

The  deputy senate president’s aide was said to have allegedly invited a band of armed persons suspected to be political thugs who stormed the place with machete and daggers with which they allegedly inflicted severe injuries on their said victims, an Enugu-based 52-year-old artist, his two sons, Ugochukwu, 21, and Emmanuel, 16.

The sculptor, Vincent Ochin, and his two sons have been hospitalised at Our Saviour’s Medical Centre, 9th Mile Corner, near Enugu, where they are being treated for injuries sustained in the attack.

The five armed men, suspected to political thugs, were allegedly hired by an ex-chairman of Ojebeogene Development Centre under the previous regime.

Trouble started when the artist, Mr. Vincent Ochin, younger brother to Ekweremadu’s  political aide was working with his two sons, Ugochukwu and Emmanuel on a septic tank at his building in their family house at Ukana but unknown to them, the ex-development centre chairman made good his alleged threat to deal with his brother if the project was not stopped.

”He had earlier packed all the gravel I was using for the project into the pit which was dug for the toilet. The ex-development centre chairman warned that if anybody should unearth those gravel from the hole, he would deal with the person,” Vincent narrated to newsmen who visited him in the hospital yesterday.

The 16-year-old Emmanuel, a student, had a big swell on the left side of his jaw, a heavy bandage on his right arm and big plaster in the middle of his head, following machete cuts he was said to have received when the armed men struck.

Similarly, Ugochukwu, 21, had a swell on his forehead, and looked very ruffled while their father, Vincent, who said they were brutalized was looking very awe-struck.

When Vanguard visited the police station at 9th Mile corner, the Investigating Police Officer, IPO, in charge of the case confirmed the detention of the suspect but said the suspect admitted that the victims were beaten by his workers, and not political thugs as alleged.

He also said the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, had ordered the suspect to produce the thugs who reportedly brutalised Vincent and his two sons just as he said investigation was still on.