By Desire Emmanuel
A member of a kidnapping gang has been arrested inside a forest in Edo State after spending many days there along with other members of the gang who escaped on sighting men of the state police command.
The gang member, Mohammed Saleh, aged 18 years, was arrested on May 17 around 3:00 p.m. by operatives of Police Mobile Force Base 82, Uromi.
The operatives stormed a forest along the Ewu-Auchi Road following intelligence reports gathered from a concerned citizen on the suspicious movement of suspected kidnappers within the area.
During the operation, the kidnappers who had been living in the forest for some time took to their heels on sighting the operatives and were given a hot chase, leading to the arrest of Saleh.
According to the state police command in a statement late on Tuesday night, preliminary investigation revealed that the teenager belongs to a kidnapping syndicate.
He further confessed that two fleeing members of the gang, identified as Musa Shedau and Abdulmumini, are in possession of the weapons they used to carry out abduction of persons in the area..
He has been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department SCID for more investigation while efforts are on top gear to track down the fleeing members of the gang and recover their weapons.
The state government and the police command in the state have been grappling with the activities of kidnappers who come from a particular part of the country and hide inside various forests where they launch attacks and abduct residents in the state.
They thereafter demand for huge sums of ransoms while some of the victims whose families are unable to pay are either killed or given life-threatening injuries.
Some of the kidnappers had been arrested and charged to various courts in the state by the command.
