Navrongo: Robber stabs and rapes 32-year-old married woman
According to the victim, the suspect pounced on her at knifepoint and punched her continuously until he overpowered her
A 32 -year-old married woman in the Navrongo municipality in the Upper East Region has been left in great pain and trauma in the War Memorial Hospital in Navrongo after she was robbed, stabbed and raped.
The victim (name withheld), who can barely now stand on her feet, had left her home on the dawn of Monday 1 August, to assist her mistress in her porridge-making business, when a man attacked and raped her.
She narrated that her attacker had been hiding in a thicket near the road, pounced on her at knifepoint and punched her continuously until he overpowered her.
The incident happened in Gongnia, behind the C.K Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences, where the victim lives with her husband.
The culprit, who has since been identified as Kwame Abass “presido”, is also a resident of the area living with his family in a rented apartment.
Speaking to Asaase News’s Senyalah Castro on her hospital bed, the victim said her attacker first demanded for her mobile phone and every penny on her which she surrendered to him after a brief moment of resistance.
She continued that the attacker, who appeared unsatisfied with the brand of mobile phone and her inability to produce the money he demanded, began to strangle her, stabbed her in the ear and thighs, dragged her into the thicket and raped her eventually.
The victim said her attacker bolted into the thicket after the act. She said a pastor who was passing by much later heard her cries and helped her back home.
Her husband who was still at home then immediately took her to the War Memorial Hospital hospital where she has since been receiving treatment.
While she fights for her life, her family and husband are fighting for justice.
“I was going to work on Monday early dawn around 4 am. Behind UDS (C K Tedam University), there are some teaks there so the guy was hiding there and when I got there, he attacked me with a cutlass. I tried to escape. I ran and he kicked me down. He hit me with the cutlass and I struggled and fought with him. I shouted but no one came to help.
“He said I should bring my phone, and I gave him. He said I should bring money and I told him I don’t have money with me. He attacked me again and we struggled there. He pressed my neck against the ground and he pulled me into the bushes and he raped me.” The teary victim recounted the ordeal.
Missing sandals and arrest
In the heat of the struggles between the victim and the attacker that fateful dawn, both of them lost their sandals.
The next morning, a family friend of the victim who had heard of the incident visited the scene and was able to retrieve the sandals. Among the sandals was one piece of footwear belonging to the attacker. He had forgotten to retrieve it as he got away from the scene quickly that fateful dawn.
The family launched an investigation with the footwear. Through the footwear, a family friend who had gone to the scene of the incident earlier was able to identify the attacker through a junior brother of the attacker who identified the footwear.
Coincidentally, the attacker that same morning had also asked his junior brother to go and fetch the sandal from the scene.
Sensing trouble, the family of the attacker denied access to their son and even denied his involvement in any wrongdoing. They even tried keeping him away, but the police were quickly called in and he was arrested. The police have begun an investigation.
Suspect missing from police cells
Police personnel from the Navrongo municipal police station, where a complaint had earlier been lodged by the victim’s husband, effected the arrest of the suspect. He was put in custody as investigations began immediately.
Then around 4 pm that same day, the police investigator handling the case called the complainant to inform him that the suspect had escaped from custody.
According to the husband of the victim, Kamboe Samson, the police investigator declined to give further details about the escape when he pushed for more information.
“The guy (attacker) was arrested around 9 am the next morning after I went to the police station in Navrongo to report the issue. Then around 4 pm, the police CID called me and said the guy escaped. Now, we wonder why and how the guy escaped.”
Caesar Ananga, the assemblyman for the Gongnia electoral area, who has been at the forefront of the case described the news of the suspect’s escape as worrying and unfortunate.
He said the family of the victim would press for justice regardless.
The assemblyman urged the police to do whatever was within their means to apprehend the suspect as he could pose threats to the victim’s family and community members who supported his arrest.
Apprehending the suspect
When the Navrongo police were contacted, the Municipal Police commander, assistant superintendent of police Kingsley Kanda confirmed that the case was being handled by his station. He, however, would not speak further on the case.
Asaase News, however, gathered from a deep throat source that the suspect absconded within the moment when he was brought out from the cell into a room for questioning.
The source blamed negligence on the part of the police personnel on duty for the escape of the suspect.
The source revealed that the personnel on duty on the day of the escape have since been given ten days to produce the suspect or will face disciplinary actions.
Meanwhile, Asaase News has learnt that the youths of the Gongnia community are warming up to hit the streets of Navrongo in a protest against the police authority for what they said is a “lack of professionalism and seriousness” that has led to the escape of the rape suspect.
-Senyalah Castro
