KTI students, phone dealers clash in Kumasi

There was pandemonium and a near bloodbath on the busy Kejetia-Pampaso road in Kumasi when students of the Kumasi Technical Institute tried to attack second hand cellular phone dealers on Thursday.

At about 5.15 pm, the students numbering over 700 and chanting war songs, stormed the area where the phone dealers stand to ply their trade and started pushing traders and shoppers around as well as banging on the sides of passing vehicles.
The phone dealers reacted angrily, sending the students running helter skelter and creating confusion in the area.

Wielding cutlasses, clubs, stones and other dangerous weapons, the phone dealers chased the students away, and but for the timely intervention of some elderly persons, students who could not escape and we're grabbed would have been lynched.

There were no casualties.

Explaining their reasons for storming the area to the Daily Graphic, a student who gave his name only as Roger, said some of their colleagues had recently been attacked by robbers and had their cellular phones stolen and they were of the strong conviction that because these phone dealers provide ready markets, it had encouraged the phone thieves.

He said another junior colleague was also attacked by one of the phone dealers and beaten to pulp.

However, a phone dealer told the Graphic Online that they were nearly attacked by the students for no apparent reason.

There are fears the students might return.