It is hard to escape blood-sucking SARS like this HR Manager

It all began for him on Friday, June 15, 2018, in Ikeja, Lagos.

Mahmud was driving in a convoy with his brother who occupied a different vehicle.

Three policemen had reportedly stopped the victim in Agidingbi while they were returning from a radio interview they attended the previous day.

Mahmud who drove ahead of his sibling was ordered to stop his vehicle - the follow-up action was a chain of violent encounter similar to many reports of police brutality especially from officers of the Special Anti Robbery Squad.

The Human Resources Manager described to Punch News scary details from his encounter.

“I waved my hand to tell them that I was not running away and I just wanted to find somewhere to park. I was thinking it was going to be a normal civilian-police conversation. But I realised the situation was getting more aggressive even before I got down from the car.

“One of the policemen asked me to come down from the car and told my friends and my brothers, who were driving behind me, to stay back.

“I came down and he said he wanted to search the car. I told him to go ahead. But before he even tried to search, he had started manhandling me.

“I told him that he had not even asked for my name or who owned the car I was driving and what I did for a living.

“He, however, searched me and the car without finding anything incriminating.

“I don’t drive with my shoes on; so, when I got down, I was barefooted. I told the three officers more than five times that I wanted to get my shoes, but they looked at me with no response.

“The moment I tried to get my shoes, the policemen went berserk and started slapping and hitting me. One of them was shouting that he drank blood and he was ready to drink my blood.

"He pulled my shirt and trousers and threw me into their vehicle, a Sienna, without a number plate," the victim told a Punch reporter.

What is a policeman doing with a cutlass?

It was not a small encounter for Kamil Mahmud who confirmed that he was threatened with a cutlass.

He explained to Punch that a pedestrian who attempted to plead with the officers was also threatened with the weapon.

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At the backseat of a police vehicle, Mahmud has his hands tied with a handcuff. His brother and company have been told that they need to cough out a sum of N15,000 in order to secure his release.

They were only able to raise N8,000.

“As I sat on the back seat of their car, one of them put handcuffs in my hands. They never told me what I did wrong.

“The one who assaulted me with the cutlass started the car and drove to Ikeja GRA. On getting to the Area F Police Command, the officers refused to enter the premises and I told them that they should take me inside the station and file a report because I really wanted to know what my offence was. They shouted at me that I still had the mouth to talk.

“The officer driving had a bottle of gin in front of the car; he was drinking and driving. They later negotiated with my brothers and demanded N15,000.

“My brothers went to use the ATM at Conoil Filling Station, but the ATM did not dispense cash. Then one of the policemen got angry and started driving towards Oba Akran Road. When we got there, he parked and waited for my brothers.

“My brothers came and told them that they were able to get N8,000. They collected it, removed the handcuffs from my hand and told me to get out of their car," says Mahmud.

For having such an unpleasant experience with the policemen, the Edo State-born professional wants his tormentors who he believes are Federal SARS operatives prosecuted.

According to Punch News, Chike Oti, a spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command, the men who dealt with the victim are not policemen because their uniforms did not bear code numbers.

Oti wants Mahmud to come forward with more information to aid an investigation.