Residents and passersby at Community 10, a suburb of Tema near the Provita Hospital, last week Friday morning were thrown into a state of panic and confusion, when a senior police officer subjected a taxi cab driver to severe punishment and humiliation.
The action, which was described by onlookers as a show of power and abuse of human rights, took place last Friday, around the Provita Hospital at Tema Community 10.
The police officer, ASP Daniel Dzam-Tse, who is the crime officer at the Tema Community Two (2) Police Station handcuffed 65 year old taxi driver, Christian Asamoah, to his taxi cab, and left him for over two hours on the street. His offence was that he picked a nurse, who wanted to get to her work place early, at an authorised place. Narrating his ordeal to the paper last Tuesday, Mr. Asamoah disclosed that he could not believe why the crime officer would treat him the way he did, because he did not park wrongly, neither did he insult nor cross the officer. According to him, around 08:00 hours that fateful morning, he was driving his Opel Kadett taxi cab, with registration number GT 6399 R, from the SOS Preparatory School through Dr. Kaiko�s Clinic, towards the Provita Hospital, when a nurse beckoned him to stop.
He said when the nurse boarded the car and he was about to move, a Toyota salon car pulled to a halt right in front of his car. A man came out of the car and introduced himself as a police officer, and demanded that he hand over his driving license to him, which he obliged. �Then the man rushed back to his car, and returned with handcuffs in his hand, handcuffed my left hand, chained it to the door of the driver�s side of the car, went back to his car and hurriedly sped off, leaving me chained to my taxi cab,� he bemoaned.
Mr. Asamoah revealed that the incident attracted the attention of a huge crowd, thereby causing huge human traffic on the street. He said two hours later, a group of police officers arrived at the scene, and the crowd, which had gathered there, angrily approached them seeking answers to why they did that, but they claimed they were from patrol duties on the Tema motorway. The taxi driver continued that one of them brought out a key and tried to open his handcuffs, but to no avail.
He said while trying to unlock the handcuffs, a Good Samaritan, driving a Mitsubishi Pagero, arrived on the scene, �and on seeing me, he turned around and later returned with the keys and freed me from the handcuffs.� Continuing, he noted that the man said that he was in a hurry, and that he would pass by the police station by 14:00 hours, and if he was still there would help grant him bail.
He said the police officers then escorted him to the Community Two Police Station, and asked him to wait behind the counter. The pale looking taxi driver continued that around 11:00 hours, a lady senior police officer, whose name he could not , came around and asked him whether he insulted or crossed the man who handcuffed him, to which he replied in the negative.
He said, without even writing his statement, the lady asked that he should be given his driving license and released to go back home. When contacted, ASP Daniel Dzam-Tse admitted cuffing the taxi driver, but claimed that the whole incident lasted only 20 minutes. According to him, he took the action out of anger, because the taxi driver stopped in the middle of the street, thereby causing vehicular traffic. He said he had apologised to the Tema North Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU).
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