Ibadan — No fewer than four people were killed in Ibadan on Tuesday morning as members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and policemen engaged themselves in a fierce gun battle, during which the Omi-Adio Police Station in Iddo local government area of Oyo State was razed down.

Several others including the officer in charge (OC) of the burnt police station, ASP Emmanuel Orunnisajo were seriously injured and is now on danger list in an undisclosed hospital, as he was reportedly macheted severally by the rampaging union members who invaded the station at about 6.30 a.m.

The whereabouts of some other policemen attached to the station still remained unknown as at the time of going to press.

Daily Champion gathered that the angry mob, who had mobilized in their hundreds, and stormed the police station unannounced, were protesting the alleged inhuman torture meted out to one of their own who was said to have been arrested and detained at the police station sometime last week but reportedly died few hours after his release from the police cell.

In the ensuing pandemonium, about 15 vehicles and four motorcycles were vandalized or burnt while stains of human blood were seen at various spots within the Omi-Adio community.

Meanwhile, most residents of the densely-populated town have fled.

Initially, some of those seriously injured were taken to a private hospital at Owode but were rejected and sent to the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan .

Narrating the genesis of the crisis to journalists, an eyewitness disclosed that it all started when the policemen attached to the area caught a driver and accused him of violating traffic regulations.

The driver, simply identified as Kunle, was reportedly manhandled by the officers. He was said to have been bleeding seriously through the nostrils and ears. When he was eventually released, he died on Monday night.

Angered by the development, his colleagues allegedly took the corpse to the police station, a situation which snowballed into an orgy of violence as the policemen reportedly shot four of the rioters dead in their bid to disperse the rampaging crowd.

Confirming the incident, the Oyo State Police Commissioner, Mr. Udom Ekpoudom said it was the members of the NURTW that first opened fire on his men.