Police and military patrols have been intensified in the Asawase and Asokore Mampong Municipality following directives issued by the Ashanti Regional Security Council in response to the recent fatal shootings of two individuals in separate incidents.
Security personnel have mounted strict checkpoints, enforcing stop-and-search operations and implementing restrictions such as a ban on the use of motorbikes after 7 p.m.
While the perpetrators behind the shootings remain at large, several motorbikes have been impounded for violating the directives. Police have also reportedly seized weapons in an intelligence-led operation conducted in Asawase and other parts of the Ashanti Region.
One week after the directive took effect, many residents have expressed support for the security measures, though some are calling on the government to take further action to address the root causes of the violence.
Dr. Jones Opoku Ware, a criminologist at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, commended the current measures but cautioned that they are not enough in the long term.
“I am hoping that in the short to medium term, it should be able to contain the issue, but in the long term, there are very, very serious things on the ground which I think that the agencies of state and the government will have to come in and solve. These are not things that we have to use superficial measures to solve,” he said.