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The Katanga Alumni has welcomed the condemnation of the brutality meted out to some students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) by the police but says it will not rest until justice is served.

A video aired on TV3 captured some officers from Asokwa Police physically assaulting the students after an alleged clash between Katanga and Unity Halls residents at Tech Junction in Kumasi.

Both halls, situated on KNUST campus are perceived to be rivals as friction between the two stirs with the least provocation.

Eight students were reportedly arrested, charged with rioting and causing damage to some vehicles but were later released to the security coordinator of the university.

Deputy Ashanti Regional Police PRO, Chief Inspector Godwin Ahianyo told TV3, Monday that officers were under investigation for the “unprofessional conduct” while promising that “those found to have misconducted themselves would be taken on”.

A statement Gideon Owusu-Yeboah, President of Katanga Alumni – Kumasi Chapter lauded the move and noted the union will assist investigations to ensure the officers are brought to book.

“…we, the Alumni of Katanga, by this press release, serve notice to the savage and disgraceful police officers that we are coming for them with our all. We take a serious view of what OccupyGhana once rightly described as a “steadily graduating force [usually and unjustly] exhibited by the Ghana Police Service against ordinary Ghanaian citizens” and therefore shall provide every assistance the students may need to bring them to justice in our courts!” the statement said.

According to the statement, the students who were brutalized by the police never engaged in any unlawful activity to merit the ‘torture’.

“Apparently, some students of Katanga went to participate in this year’s Old Skuuls Reunion event organised by Luv Fm in Kumasi – at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium. It is our understanding that when they got to the venue and were entering, some group of students believed to be affiliates of one of the halls in KNUST began pelting them with stones – a factual account widely collaborated by eyewitnesses who were present at the event. The altercation led to the students of both halls scattering. The students seen in the footage being tortured by the police officers were part of those who managed to enter the stadium, during the altercation, for safety and were returning to campus when they felt calm had been restored. The Police Officers were on the Kumasi-Accra road and met the students at Afful Nkwanta, only to descend on them with the beastly-kind of brute force captured on the tape just because they were in Katanga T’shirts and other regalia," it said.

Acknowledging the existence of the rivalry, Katanga Alumni promised to “continue to engage, even harder, with the students, and authorities of the Hall and the University and our friends from Unity Hall to end these unnecessary and frankly troubling occasional altercations and reset the rivalry between the two Halls to focus on healthy competitions on campus as it used to be.”