The Ashanti Regional Police Command has affirmed its resolve to hound criminals operating in the region for the safety of residents.

“We have identified some key hideouts used as a haven for these criminals and will pursue them,” Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Godwin Ahianyo, the Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO) said.

He said ‘Operation Keep Ashanti Safe’, had been necessitated by the incidence of robberies in the region, especially within the Greater Kumasi area.

ASP Ahianyo, briefing the media in Kumasi, after a swoop at Aboabo Number Two, which led to the arrest of more than 30 suspected criminals, appealed to the public not to shield those deviants.

He said items retrieved from the suspects in the swoop included a foreign pistol and a number of cartridges, machetes, scissors, hand pliers, mobile phones, and dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp, and other offensive weapons.

The suspects are being screened and those found culpable would soon be put before court, the Police PRO said.

ASP Ahianyo said special operations would be carried out in the coming days in suburbs such as Suame-Kotoko, Krofrom-Colombia, Tinker-Line, and other notorious areas.

He said some of these vicinities had virtually become ‘no-go-area’ for innocent residents, stressing that these criminals would be hunted persistently until they had no room to operate.

The Ghana News Agency (GNA) gathered that the recent shootings associated with a series of robberies perpetuated by criminals in Ghana’s second-largest city, with some resulting in deaths, had necessitated the special operation.

The attack on mobile money vendors, snatching of mobile phones, breaking into stores and shops, and other nefarious activities by some group of gangsters are on the rise in the region.