The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Umaru Manko, has confirmed that his command lost three men of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) this afternoon after an encounter with dare-devil men of the underworld in Ikeja, the state capital.

“I’m confirming three,” Manko told a Special Correspondent of News Express who got through to him on phone to confirm the number of casualties. News Express had earlier put the number at three as against the two published by an evening newspaper.

As reported by News Express, the RRS operatives who specalise on combating armed robbers, were attacked in their patrol van by the hoodlums, who were said to have been on a robbery operation during which they reportedly cleaned out a bureau de change in Agege.

Additional details reported by the Lagos-based PM News indicated that the robbers drove in two SUVs, a Toyota Prado and Armada, and numbered eight, among them “two women who were driving the SUVs.”

The robbers were said to have started their operation at about 10:35 a.m. from Ifako-Gbagada, Oshodi, Mile 2 and Agege and were escaping in their SUV when a team of RRS operatives on their trail caught up with the robbers at Guinness Bus Stop along Oba Akran Avenue but came under heavy attack before they could engage the robbers, who escaped with their loot.

*Photo, courtesy PM News, shows the attacked patrol van.