The Ghana Police Service is making efforts to arrest suspects involved in the brutal assault of three Indian Catholic priests at Nkwanta in the Oti Region.
The incident, which occurred on December 11, 2024, involved priests identified as Father Robinson Melkis, Father Frank Henry Jacob, and Father Martin George, who were attacked by a mob at a fuel station in Nkwanta.
The priests, who belong to the Capuchin Friars and have been engaged in missionary activities in Ghana since 2005, were severely beaten, with Father Frank Henry Jacob sustaining injuries that have affected his hearing.
Two other officials of the Nkwanta-South Municipal Assembly who were accompanying them were also assaulted by the mob. They are the Municipal Engineer and the Municipal Town and Country Planning Officer, Samuel Worlanyo Asugbey.
According to the Vicar-General of the Catholic Diocese of Jasikan, Monsignor Joseph Kofi Nsiah, they had gone to hire a bulldozer from the Nkwanta-South Municipal Assembly to work on a piece of land they were preparing to construct a Formation House project for seminarians at Chaiso in the Nkwanta-South Municipality.
They paid an amount of GH¢9,700 and were accompanied by the two officials to move the equipment to the site at Chaiso.
Nsiah said they were at a filling station to fuel the equipment when they were attacked by the mob, who accused them of trying to steal the equipment.
He said for 30 minutes they were beaten mercilessly until they were rescued by officers of the Ghana Immigration Service. The mob then reported to the police that the priests were stealing one of the Assembly’s Road equipment.
But the police, in an update by its Director of Public Affairs of the Ghana Police Service, ACP Grace Ansah-Akrofi, in Accra on Friday, December 13, assured that efforts were underway to get these suspects arrested to face judgment.
“Police efforts are underway to get these suspects arrested to face justice,” she stated.
