Woman reports how 4 policemen tortured her over stolen iPad allegation

A 29-year-old woman, Karamat Eleha, a trader in the Balogun Market, Lagos State, is one angry woman at the moment as she has accused four police officers attached to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), of the state Police Command, of torturing her over an allegation of a stolen iPad, and in the process, inflicting serious injuries on her.

The woman who said the owner of the iPad, an influential woman who resides at Ajah area of the state, had reported her to the police alleging that she stole the item and the police led by one Abiola also known as Abbey, while searching for the iPad, allegedly stormed the building Eleha lives with her mother at Idumagbo area of Lagos Island, where they searched each apartment without finding the missing iPad.

On her return from where she had gone to, Eleha was asked about the missing item and was also searched but nothing was found on her but the police still went ahead to arrest her, insisting that they were getting signal from a tracker that the device was in the compound. They took her to their station where she was detained and tortured seriously.

Hear her narration of the ugly incident:

"Around 10.20 pm on May 14, I just returned home from a fellowship when the policemen asked me about a missing iPad and I told them I knew nothing about it. They checked my bag, but nothing was found there.

They took me to a room which they called ‘theatre’. They stripped me naked and tortured me for hours.

Even my legs were broken. When they realised that I was bleeding, they took me to a nurse, who charged them N3,000. They later gave the nurse N1,000 to treat me."

But the Lagos State POlice Public Relations Officer, DSP Kenneth Nwosu, has exonerated the officers, saying Eleha was only invited to the station and was never tortured.

"An iPad was stolen and was traced to her compound. It was observed that the iPad was on the streets she (Eleha) passed through and she was invited to the station.

There was no issue of torture. I don’t know what torture she is talking about."