Normalcy has now returned to kaduna state after Monday's crisis following rumours that the police in the state had executed 19 people out of those arrested over their alleged participation in last week's nation-wide strike over increase petroleum prices and buried them in a mass grave. Following the rumour which started after some policemen and health officials were seen burning 19 corpses of suspected armed robbers at the Tudun Wada cemetary on Sunday night, there was stampede as irate youths took to the streets to demonstrate against "killings of innocent citizens".

The protesters also exhumed the dead bodies claiming that they had identified some of them as their relations. But as the news of the riot spread, residents ran helter-skelter as markets and shops were hurriedly closed following fears that another religious riot had broken out. The repeated denial by the state police command that those arrested during the strike had been charged to court where they were granted bail did not assuage the feelings of the rioters until soldiers and anti-riot policemen were deployed to strategic areas of the metropolis to bring the situation under control. In a radio and television broadcast to the people later in the evening, the state governor, Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi said that mass burial was organised for suspected armed robbers who were killed in various operations where there were exchanges of fire between the hoodlums and law enforcement agents.

Makarfi also set up a seven-man committee headed by the former military governor of the defunct North Western State, Alhaji Usman Farouk to unravel the truth behind the mass burial. The Governor also empowered the Committee to look into the circumstances which led to the killing of a 12-year old secondary school student, Muhammadu Sani Idris by the police on Monday, October 11,2004 when the last nation-wide strike took off.

"From what we have gathered so far, even though not conclusive, some people were given a mass burial after which the corpses were said to have been exhumed by people who might have suspected some ulterior motive. "From the little that is available at this moment, the corpses are said to be those of suspected armed robbers who were said to have engaged the police in gun battles in the various operations that the police have been undertaking. "Government is of course aware that the police have been conducting several operations that include raids to flush out armed robbers from certain crime prone areas and highways and in the process gun battles ensue claiming lives on both sides.

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