The Member for Yangoru-Saussia and Minister for National Planning, Richard Maru, has called on the communities in West Yangoru to report and hand over all outstanding suspects.
The suspects, numbering over 20, should be handed over to Police at Yangoru for their continuous hold ups on the Sepik Highway.
“The entire East Sepik Province and our people in Yangoru are fed up of these rascals who continue to hold up our PMVs and buses at the Marinjan Bridge at Boem nearly every two days. They have targeted the travelling public, especially our vanilla traders, to steal from their hard earned cash after their sales,” he said.
“I have met families who have lost K50,000, some K80,000 in a single hold up, which is totally unacceptable.”
The District is funding a three-month police operation to flush all suspects and bring them to justice. An additional team of 10 policemen from Wewak will be stationed at Yangoru to assist in this special operation.
“Those who aid and abet these criminals, including their families and parents, will also be arrested for harbouring these criminals.
“Enough is enough, our people cannot be subjected to this criminals and thugs every day,” he said.
“We will also be running an operation to collect so many illegal guns in all our communities in and around the Yangoru-Saussia district.
“There are also a number of murderers and rapists still hiding out in the district so we are doing all we can to capture these criminals to bring them to justice.
“I want to assure the people of Yangoru-Saussia district that our focus on capturing all criminals on the run and improving the law and order situation in our district will continue and I appeal to all our law abiding citizens to report all criminals on the run in our district to Yangoru Police,” Minister Maru said.