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From Kelechi Okoronkwo, Joke Akanmu (Abuja) and Alex Olise, (Lagos)
AN attempt to abduct a middle aged woman in Abuja was foiled yesterday when the car that the alleged kidnappers were using developed an electrical fault and forced the men to abandon the woman and the car and zoomed off in another car.
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Curiously, the foiled abduction, which the police said appeared to be an armed robbery attempt came to its infamous end directly opposite the Police Pensions office along Sylvester Ugoh Street in the federal capital.
The woman (name withheld) was supervising construction work on what her workers said was her site on Olu Awotesu Street (where The Guardian Newspaper is located) when four young men came to the site. They took over the storey building structure and forced the workers to lie face down as they went round looking for the woman whose car was parked in front. "As soon as they saw madam, they forced her into the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) and they drove off as we pursued," one of the site hands said.
"Unfortunately for them, the car developed a fault. They jumped down and took off with another car as passers-by continued to shout," an eyewitness said.
Long after the gang left, a police patrol team arrived about 11:40 a.m.
At press time, the police command was yet to be availed of the events, but the affected woman was too rattled to speak as the crowd that gathered commiserated with her.
In a low hair cut, with a flowery green gown, she acknowledged sympathy greetings from the crowd.
When The Guardian visited the scene of the incident yesterday, the workers on the site who looked traumatised confirmed that the gangsters caused scare at the neighbourhood as they shot sporadically into the air, adding that the men stopped an oncoming vehicle in which they drove off.
At the Police Post at Jabi, the Officer In Charge who declined to give his name, said the post got an information from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command that there was a robbery incident at the Jabi area but stated that when the police got to the scene, they did not see anything.
The officer said his men on ground at Jabi told him that there was neither robbery or kidnapping incident at the area.
He said: "We did not hear anything about kidnapping. What we heard on air was that there was a robbery incident at Mr. Bigg's this morning between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. but when we got to that place, we did not see anything. We met some mobile policemen who are on duty at that area but they told us that nothing like that happened".
Meanwhile to check the rising cases of kidnapping in the South-West, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ogbonna Onovo, has directed its special anti-kidnap squad to check the crime.
A top police source disclosed to The Guardian that the anti-kidnap squad from the force headquarters Abuja was already working on available information on the operational tactics of the bandits.
The team is expected to do their job through the community policing strategy, which has been re-organised by the IGP across the 36 states command.
The Guardian further learnt that the police have identified major states mostly affected by kidnapping in recent times as Edo, Delta and Ondo states.
The security agents are expected to work very closely with traditional rulers within their areas of operation to fish out the bandits.
The anti-kidnap squad recorded success in some Eastern states within the past three months following the arrest of no fewer than 250 suspected kidnappers in states like Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu and Ebonyi. |
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