The interment of over 200 victims recently attacked in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State by suspected Fulani herdsmen generated a serious controversy following allegations that security agencies want to carry out the exercise in secret.

Sources said that relatives of the deceased wanted to pick the corpses for burial because they have started decomposing, while tension continued to escalate despite the dusk to dawn curfew imposed by the government.

Already, some travellers coming in and out of Jos were said to have been killed.

The attack was said to have spread to a village called Kwi where an old woman who could not escape was reportedly killed while many houses were burnt.

The Chairman, Public Accounts and Petition Committee in Plateau State House of Assembly representing Barkin Ladi constituency, Peter Gyendeng, and the President of Middle Belt Youth Council, Emma Zopmal, believed that the planned secret burial was to cover up some facts and conspiracy of soldiers in the killings.

According to them, every effort they made to evacuate the corpses for burial met a stiff resistance from the military hierarchy.

But the Commander of Special Military Taskforce codenamed Operation Safe Haven, Maj. Gen. Anthony Atolagbe, explained that state of the corpses was so bad that if allowed to be taken away, it would stir up serious tensions and mayhem in the state.

The legislator promised to make the correct figure and gory pictures of the deceased available on Tuesday (today), during parliamentary sitting.

According to Zopmal, the affected communities should resist the planned secret burial because the corpses did not belong to the security agencies and the government.

While faulting the approach of the state government, the MBYC called on Governor Simon Lalong to “immediately lift the curfew and devise another means of protecting the people.”

But reacting to the allegation, Kwara State-born Atolagbe, said he did not stop Berom ethnic nationality and relatives of the deceased from carrying the corpses.

According to him, the President of Berom Youth Moulders Association, Choji Dalyop Chuwang, and the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria, have agreed with him on what best should be done about the corpses to avoid another crisis.

Atolagbe also denied the allegation that trucks of cows were escorted by soldiers despite the curfew, while local vigilante natives were disarmed, saying, “nobody did that, it’s not true.”