Two fake blind beggars arrested at Imo varsity

One of the beggars being taken away by policemen

Policemen attached to the Imo State University, Owerri, have arrested two fake blind beggars on the varsity’s campus.

Their arrest, our correspondent learnt on Tuesday, followed intelligence information given to the police by some students of the institution, that the two young men who had been begging for alms on the campus were not blind as they had claimed.

A student leader, Chidi Onyeji, told Southern City News that the fake blind men were apprehended by the police at the main gate of the varsity.

He said, “The policemen attached to the entry gate of Imo State University, Owerri have uncovered swindle activities of a particular group who devise unlawful means to attract sympathy and rip off kind-hearted students of their hard-earned money under the pretext of being blind.”

The undergraduate said the cops, who arrested the fake blind persons at the institution’s main gate, were deployed to curb exploitative activities of student cultists on the campus during the ongoing second semester examinations.

According to Onyeji, luck ran out on the suspects when one of the policemen called one of the beggars, and on approaching, the cop slapped him and asked him to open his eyes.

He explained that upon interrogation, the two fake blind persons confessed to the crime, saying they took to the crime to make ends meet because they were unemployed.

Our correspondent gathered that the suspects had been transferred to the state Police Command in Owerri, where they were being interrogated.

When contacted, the state Commissioner of Police, Chris Ezike, said he had yet to be briefed on the incident, but acknowledged that he deployed policemen to IMSU to checkmate cult-related activities on the campus during the ongoing degree examinations of the university.