Parents reject corpse of EKSU student from police

Parents of Mr. Seyi Fasere, a 400-level student of Business Administration Department of the Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, who was allegedly killed by the police in Oye Ekiti, have refused to collect the body of the student for burial.

Parents of the deceased, Mr. Joseph Fasere and Florence, in company with a human rights lawyer, Mr. Ayodeji Ali, told journalists on Friday that they were not satisfied with how the police carried out the autopsy on the body of the 28-year-old undergraduate.

Ali, who spoke on behalf of the family, also said the police, who were accused of killing the student, ought not to be the one to investigate the matter because “they would want to cover it up.”

The lawyer said  the family did not know how the police arrived at its autopsyreport and said the family could not accept the report because of the doubtful way the case was investigated.

He said, “The police invited us to a meeting and the Divisional Police Officer of Oye just announced to us that we should come and claim Seyi’s body in order to bury him

“The DPO, Mr. Akeem Sikiru, told us at the meeting in his office that we should take a paper that would allow us to claim the corpse for burial. We rejected that because of the arrogance and unilateral action of the police. The DPO told us that the invitation to the family was to tell us that he had been directed by the police authorities to tell us to come and claim the corpse.”

Ali said the state government ought to be the one to institute a judicial panel of inquiry to investigate the death, adding that such panel would makerecommendations to relevant authorities on the case.

The family, who insisted that Seyi was not an armed robber but a victim of police’s extra-judicial killing, said the family name had been tarnished and the police must exonerate him.

“The panel that investigated the murder has not completed their job because they did not invite the human rights community to partake in it. Are they saying that the boy would be buried in the current state in which no one has been able to ascertain his status?

“The police labeled him an armed robber but it is clear from witnesses that the boy was not part of any robbery gang,” Ali added.