LAGOS, June 3 (Xinhua) -- Six policemen in the Nigeria police force have been arrested in Nigeria's economic hub, Lagos State, following the killing of a 40-year-old man, Semiu Murtala, in his car on Saturday, according to the Lagos-based Punch newspaper reports on Tuesday.

    The deceased was said to be returning from a soccer practice onS aturday and was racing to beat the 7 a.m. local time commencement of the state monthly environmental sanitation exercise, when he was killed.

    According to the newspaper report, the trigger-happy policemen attached to the Idimu police station, a suburb area in Lagos, were said to be on patrol when the gory incident happened.

    Police authorities in the state had ordered the divisional police officer at Idimu, to fish out the culprits.

    It is learnt that a protest by youths in the area followed the dastardly act before the monarch in the area, Samson Balogun, intervened.

    Mallam Abdullah, the divisional police officer at Idimu, said all the policemen in the team that allegedly killed Murtala had been identified and ordered to be detained at the station.

    The spokesman for the Lagos State Police Command, Frank Mba, confirmed the arrest of the errant policemen, noting the police will surely make a discrete investigation into the matter.