A police Inspector and 23 others have been abducted and one person killed by gunmen suspected to be kidnappers in Kaduna. The bandits have reportedly demanded N100m from the inspector’s husband.
Nine persons, including Police Inspector Gloria Sebastien, one Alhaji Usman and seven members of his family including three children; Aliyu, Aisha and Abdullahi were kidnapped at Ungwan Ma’aji, New Millennium City, Kaduna Wednesday night.
Also, 15 persons were kidnapped in multiple bandits attacks along Kaduna – Birnin Gwari road on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The bandits on Birnin Gwari road, were said to have attacked members of a family conveying corpse of their father, who died at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria to Birnin Gwari, killed the driver and kidnapped the occupants of the vehicle.
At Ungwan Ma’aji, Millennium City Kaduna, where nine persons were kidnapped Wednesday night, residents said similar incident took place last Friday, where a Kaduna Polytechnic lecturer identified as Tijjani and two others were kidnapped from a Police SP, Maryam’s residence.
Residents said that the kidnappers had since contacted the family of the the Polytechnic lecturer demanding N10 million ransom.
Narrating the Wednesday night incident, an eye witness, who escaped being kidnapped, Ayuba Chiwar said, the gunmen who were about 20 stormed their house around 10:24pm and whisked away her elder sister, Inspector Gloria Sebastien.
According to him, “I was in the sitting room chatting around 10:24pm, suddenly, I heard a hard knock on our gate. I first kept quiet, then heard another round of louder continuous knock. Then, I asked, who is there, nobody answered, as I peeped from the window, I saw somebody on our fence, before I could bring torchlight, he had jumped into the compound and opened the gate for others.
“Then, I started shouting thief, thief, but I didn’t realise they were many until I peeped again, and I saw about 10 of them inside the compound, others were outside watching the community. By my estimation, they should be up to 20.
“Before I could say anything they were already attempting to break into the house, so i ran to my aunty’s room and told her to go and hide inside the room, then I climbed into the ceiling. When they got access into the house, they started shouting, where is the boy? They were slapping my sister to produce me, but she told them she didn’t know where I escaped to. So, they went away with her.
“When they were about leaving, one of them, insisted on looking for me, but their superior told him to forget about me. So, as soon as they left our house, they went to another house where they kidnapped Alhaji Usman and his family,” he narrated.
Meanwhile, one of the officials of the landlord association who does not want his name in print said, the kidnappers had earlier on Thursday contacted the husband of Inspector Gloria Sebastien and demanded N100 million ransom.
The source said, Garrison Commander of 1 Division Nigerian Army, Kaduna state Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Mr Samuel Aruwan, and representative of the Commissioner of Police, Umar Muri had Thursday afternoon respectively visited the scenes of the abduction in Ungwar Ma’aji.
However, when contacted, Kaduna Police Command PPRO, ASP Mohammed Jalige, told our Correspondent that, he was on an assignment outside the office, but he would get back later. Further calls to him were neither picked nor replied.
