Lagos — It has emerged that the leader of the Islamic fundamentalist group, Boko Haram, Mohammed Yusuf, was captured alive last Thursday before the police later allegedly killed him.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) at the weekend obtained a photograph, which showed that the leader of the Boko Haram sect was alive when captured by the army.

THISDAY also learnt that Yusuf's deputy, who hails from Niger Republic, and a former commissioner in the Borno State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff's administration, Alhaji Buji Fai, were killed in similar fashion.

Fai had resigned his appointment in June 2008 following alleged series of warning by Sheriff that anyone in his cabinet found harbouring extremist religious views should quit before being shown the way out.

The capture and eventual elimination of Yusuf has, however, drawn the ire of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), opposition groups like the Action Congress (AC) and Congress of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) as well as Human Rights Watch.

According to the BBC, after his capture, the army handed over Boko Haram's leader to the police but only a few hours later journalists were shown his bullet-ridden body.

Days of heavy military bombardment of his base in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, had dealt a fatal blow to Yusuf and his sect members.

The police said he had been fatally wounded while trying to evade capture.

Yusuf's Islamic sect is blamed for days of violent clashes with security forces across some parts of Northern Nigeria, which had left up to 700 people dead.

On Friday, the army commander of the operation against the Boko Haram group, Col. Ben Ahanotu, said he had personally captured the sect leader and handed him over to the Commissioner of Police in Maiduguri.

He said Yusuf had a wound in his arm, which is clearly shown in the photograph and which had already been treated.

The police, however, insisted he was killed in a shoot-out.

The state commissioner of police, Christopher Dega, said Yusuf "was in a hideout, and the forces went there and there was an exchange of fire.

"In the course of that confrontation, he sustained his own injury. He was picked up and he later couldn't make it."

But sources in the police had offered a different version of events, saying the sect leader was killed while trying to escape from custody.

The military now says 700 people were killed in Maiduguri alone during violent clashes between police and the Islamic sect.

The casualties of the unrest had earlier been put at 400.

Ahanotu said that mass burials had begun in Maiduguri.

The Boko Haram compound, he said, was being used as one of the burial sites because bodies were decomposing in the heat.

Life in the affected areas is now beginning to return to normal with banks and markets reopening.

Meanwhile, NBA has condemned the summary execution of Yusuf, Fai and some of those captured by the security operatives.

The association criticised the massacre of innocent citizens and the destruction of properties in the Northern part of the country by the religious militants but added that the reported extra judicial killings of some of those captured by the security operatives must also be condemned.

"We note the effort of the security operatives for rising to the occasion and nipping the horrific incident in the bud. We must also strive to unmask the real sponsors of these deviants and punish them appropriately," NBA President, Chief Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), said.

In a statement at the weekend, the NBA president said: "We must however, hasten to equally condemn the reported extra judicial killings of some of those captured by the security operatives. It was widely reported that the leader of the Islamic extremist group, one Yusuf, was captured alive. The killing of this man in the police custody, however, reprehensible his deeds must have been, must not be encouraged in a civilized society."

Akeredolu further said: "It is unjustifiable. Those who get killed while engaging in violent confrontation with the security operatives can be allowed to leave us in peace. Killing any one caught alive not only offends the time tested axiom that nobody must be condemned without trial, even if the object of the guilt is apparent; it denies the country the opportunity to unmask the real financiers of confusion in the polity; those who consciously design programmes to keep their people in perpetual servitude.

"Anyone suspected of committing an offence must be given adequate opportunities to defend himself. This is a fundamental right that must be protected by all civilized people. The resort to extra-judicial killing by our security operatives is condemnable and we join all other human right groups in calling for an investigation of this repulsive barbarity."

Speaking in the same vein, human rights lawyer, Mr. Bamidele Aturu described the summary execution of Fai as a scary and embarrassing act of reckless extra-judicial killing that must be investigated until those responsible were fished out and dealt with according to law.

CNPP, AC and the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN) have also urged the Federal Government to do everything possible to curtail the spread of Boko Haram's activities, even as they traced the remote causes of the sectarian crisis to poverty and underdevelopment.

Also, Human Rights Watch has called for an immediate investigation into Yusuf's killing, which it described as "extrajudicial" and "illegal".

In separate statements, CSN, CNPP and AC also condemned the extra-judiciary killing of the leader of the group by the police.

According to a statement signed by its Deputy Secretary General, Rev. Fr. Louis Odudu, CSN condemned what it called "the slow pace with which the Federal Government had condoned the proliferation of the Boko Haram movement".

It urged government to "take urgent steps to control the current upsurge in religious militancy in the country as propagated by the Boko Haram sect," stating that "It is regrettable that the activities of the Boko Haram movement, which have sparked off deadly clashes with security agencies, have caused untold hardship and the loss of innocent lives and properties in Bauchi, Borno, Kano and Yobe states, especially in the cities of Dutsen Tenshin, Bauchi, Maiduguri, Potiskum and Wudil."

CSN further said: "Government must take urgent actions to address the broken-down structural condition in Nigeria, which the Boko Haram sect has taken advantage of to take the law into their hands with impunity."

It added that "government should leave no stone unturned in ensuring that the perpetrators of the acts of violence in the Northern parts of Nigeria, which have claimed the lives of many innocent citizens are made to face the full weight of the law."

But the CSN equally located the causes of various hostilities in Nigeria on the endemic poverty that has been ravaging the nation in the midst of plenty.

According to the church, "the root causes of the Boko Haram uprising just like other violence and hostilities in the country can be traced to the growing poverty in the land".

In condemning the sectarian violence that traumatized the country in the past days, CSN said the Boko Haram inferno was an unfortunate signpost to the dangerous slide of Nigeria to a failed state.

The statement called for a thorough investigation of the origin of Boko Haram, metamorphosis, extra-judicial killings and police killing of Yusuf after his capture by the army, noting that his shooting denied Nigerians the opportunity to unravel his masterminds, financiers, foreign contacts and his network profile.

The coalition of political parties called for a high powered independent inquiry capable of exposing the underbelly of such anti-establishment group, plugging the fault lines, indicting the judges who failed to serve the cause of justice and making public its findings.

In its comments on the sectarian crisis, AC said that it could have been avoided if the Federal Government had been pro-active in dealing with the crisis.

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said beyond the usual knee-jerk reaction to such crisis, the government must work hard to end the conditions that make it possible to attract and brainwash youths into joining such senseless, cult-like religious groups like Boko Haram.

"An idle mind is the devil's workshop. When millions of our youths are unemployed and there is no hope of a better tomorrow, they become easy targets for apocalyptic preachers and mindless religious zealots. The fact also that the alleged second in command of the sect is a Nigerien also speaks volume about the security of our borders and the nation's internal security. That is why this Federal Government must shake off its lethargy and address the myriad of problems facing this nation, so that our youths can channel their energies to productive ventures instead of becoming killing machines," it said.

AC also condemned the extra-judicial killing of Yusuf and the sect's alleged financier and former commissioner in Borno State, Fai, after both had been arrested.

The party said the reported execution of the leaders of the sect was a blow to Nigeria's image as a country seeking to return to the path of the rule of law, after eight years of sheer lawlessness under the anarchic presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

Also, Kaduna State Governor Namadi Sambo has expressed gratitude to Islamic leaders in the state for their vigilance in ensuring that the Boko Haram crisis did not spill over to the state.

The governor also appealed to every one in the state to remain security conscious and be steadfast in ensuring peaceful and harmonious coexistence

Sabo made the call while fielding questions from Government House Correspondents after a three-hour close door meeting at the weekend with prominent Islamic scholars in the state at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House.

While responding to a question, Sambo said: "We discussed issues on how we could continue to cooperate and ensure that we have a conducive, peaceful condition in Kaduna State," he said.

The governor added that they also discussed other varied and important issues and the scholars advised him on how to sustain the harmonious peace the state enjoys in addition to speedy development and growth in the state.

From Chuks Okocha in Abuja, Davidson Iriekpen in Lagos, Michael Olugbode in Maiduguri and Reuben Buhari in Kaduna with agency report