Ben Turi

Metropolitan Superintendent, Ben Turi, said since last Thursday, 10 deaths have been reported to police.

Details of the deaths vary as all eight men and two women were killed at different times and at different locations in the city.

Apart from two people killed in an election-related incident at Vadavada last weekend, other deaths were related to domestic arguments and ethnic clashes.

NCD Metropolitan Superintendent, Ben Turi, confirmed that some reports have been filed at police stations and are being looked into.

“The number of attempted holdups and carjacking has been increasing over the start of the election period and police are dealing with it.”

He said in a recent incident, a foreigner was tailed from the airport by criminals to the outside of Somare Foundation, where he was held up.

Turi reiterates that vehicle owners should be watching out for suspicious vehicles that are either tailing or driving in front of them.

NCD Metropolitan Superintendent, Ben Turi, stressed that the general public must make their complaints at the nearest station that there are supporters campaigning at the wrong time of the day or night so police can assist.

The NCD Metropolitan Superintendent, Ben Turi, said a planning team had just put together a detailed tasking of the roles of each and every police officer in the city.

The NCD police boss says they are part of a unit that is under the RPNGC contract for training purposes.

Commander Ben Turi says the two men are part of a six men group that is in the country since the beginning of the year – to conduct SWAT-like training for police officers in different units.

The men are police officers of different US states and are not mercenaries or other branded soldiers of fortune, says Turi.

This is outside of the constraints of the motor traffic act and its fine procedures.

NCD Metropolitan Police Commander, Ben Turi, says police personnel have been warned about removing licenses from drivers.

Turi has warned that police officers should work within the rule of law and that drivers can either be given a warning by the officer concerned or given a traffic infringement notice.

Police will turn down requests for police escorts made by candidates.

NCD Metropolitan Superintendent, Ben Turi, said requests have been made by the NCD Governor for police escort during nominations earlier this week. However, he turned them down, adding that the same applies to other candidates.

He said police have their normal policing operations that have already started and will be carried out throughout the nomination, campaign and polling period.

The NCD metropolitan police commander Ben Turi has given this assurance when confirming with PNG Loop that his 1,700 police personnel are on standby to deliver the operations.

He says that all NCD polling booths have been confirmed with his operations staff with scheduled personnel to be assigned to man them.

“There will be a minimum of ten officers stationed at the polling sites,” he adds.

NCD Metropolitan police commander Ben Turi says police have advised all candidates to not drive into Boroko with huge truckloads of supporters.

He says there will be road blocks around the Five-Mile area as well as the Murray Barracks Taurama junctions. This is to deal with traffic flow into the area.

Turi suggested for candidates to utilise public places such as the Five-Mile, Jack Pidik or Gordon’s Unagi ovals, to address their supporters after they nominate; and not outside the Electoral Office.

NCD metropolitan police commander Ben Turi revealed that most of the 150 families that were directed to take up residence at the barracks actually missed out on securing homes up at Bomana.

Turi says initially, the homes were meant for the police families affected by the health inspection that condemned their single quarters at Gordon’s barracks recently.

However, when the clearance was given for the families to move up, other police officers and their families also rushed for the opportunity to take the new houses.