A police source who confirmed the attack to SaharaReporters, said that no life was lost, but he didn't provide further details.
Gunmen enforcing a purported five-day sit-at-home order in Enugu State attacked and burnt a police patrol vehicle at New Market area on Saturday morning.
A police source who confirmed the attack to SaharaReporters, said that no life was lost, but he didn't provide further details.
It was gathered that the hoodlums who were numbering over 10 had stormed the New Market area as early as 6am probably to shut down the market but met some policemen on ground and hence attacked them.
They were reported to have engaged the policemen deployed to the market in a gun duel and eventually succeeded in setting ablaze their patrol vehicle.
Some early morning traders told SaharaReporters that the shooting forced traders who had arrived in the market for their daily business to scamper for safety, leaving their goods behind.
An eyewitness, Mike Ezeh said, "I saw group of boys around 6am this morning shouting on traders coming to market to go home. They were shouting; don't you know there's sit-at-home? Why are you disobeying it?
"Shortly, I saw a police patrol vehicle coming and immediately, they engaged them in shootout. I left my goods ran to safety. After the shooting stopped I came out and saw they had set ablaze the police patrol vehicle in front of the Colliery hospital," Ezeh said.
No casualty has been reported as at the time of this report just as the police are yet to make a statement on the incident.
Efforts to speak with the state police public relations officer DSP Daniel Ndukwe were unsuccessful as he could not answer his calls.
SaharaReporters had reported on Friday that residents of Enugu State shunned the five-day sit-at-home, Simon Ekpa, the self-proclaimed disciple of the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu declared in the South East region.
The early morning attack at in Enugu metropolis may have been a deliberate effort to scare the people and force them to obey the sit-at-home order.