The Imo State Police Command will charge arrested members of the Eastern Security Network (ESN) for murder, Abutu Yaro, the state police commissioner has revealed.

Yaro told Punch that the group had destroyed public infrastructure and killed several security agents, and as such the arrested members would not be allowed to go uncharged.

“The law is very explicit on this. We will charge them for murder,” he said.

“Their activities are terrorism. They were unleashing violent crimes on the state until we decimated them in three explosive battles in the last six weeks.

 “I have moved my tactical units to the hinterlands because they have relocated to the villages because of the defeats they suffered at our hands in the last three explosive battles in the last six weeks.”

Yaro added that Stanley Osinachi, a suspected ESN member arrested during a failed attack on the Imo State Police Command Headquarters earlier in June, would also be prosecuted.

Gunmen suspected to be ESN members had unleashed several attacks on Imo State in recent times. In January, an attack on Orlu market left several traders and soldiers dead.

The pPlice also revealed that ESN was responsible for the gunmen attack on Owerri Prison, where almost 2,000 inmates escaped and several properties were destroyed.

ESN is the armed division of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a separatist group in Nigeria’s South East.