An unconfirmed number
of persons have been
reportedly killed while six police officers have been hospitalised following violent clashes between members of a new religious sect identified as “Yan Gwagwarmaya” said the police in Birnin Kebbi, the Kebbi State capital.
Special adviser to the Kebbi State governor on information, Alhaji Abdullahi Zuru, who confirmed the incident in an interview with the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) monitored in Abuja yesterday, said the new religious sect, led by Malam Muhammadu Sanusi Makeran-Gwandu, surfaced in the state preaching practices strange to Islam.
Alhaji Abdullahi said the clashes broke out when the police invited the group for interrogation to maintain peace and security in the state.
“In the process of discussion with an assistant com-missioner of police, members of the sect attacked the police leading to a number of casua-lties, including six police officers who sustained serious injuries,” he said.
He disclosed that the sect constructed what they called the holy Ka’aba for spiritual obligations, attempting to replicate the Ka’aba in Mecca.
“They were to have engaged in free exchange of wives, abuse traditional rulers and incite the public against constituted authorities,” he said.
Alhaji Abdullahi said that as Sharia was practised in the state, it was foolhardy for anyone to introduce anything strange in Kebbi State in the name of religion, and assured the populace of government’s commitment to peace and order in the state.
He said the leader of the new sect initially stationed his group in Makeran Gwa-ndu village before he was forced to flee to Takalau ward.
But Malam Muhammadu Sanusi told the BBC there was no going back in the sect’s “commitment to introducing Sharia in the state.”
The authorities refuse to say exactly how many people were killed in the raid.
The sect, which is repo-rted to have thousands of followers, had incensed Muslim groups by calling their base the Ka’aba - after Islam’s holiest site in town of Mecca. They walked around the courtyard of their base, as Muslims do on the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Their motto is: “Love your neighbour as yourself, share your wives with your neighbour.”
The police authorities said those arrested would be charged in court after invest-igation.
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