By Sam Kayode
A 17-year-old boy has been arrested by the Nigeria Police in Plateau State for suspected criminal conspiracy, kidnapping and culpable homicide.
While addressing newsmen during the week in Jos, Commissioner of Police, Julius Alawari, said that the Anti-Kidnapping Unit, received a phone call that one Dawon Pam aged, 5 years was missing and that meticulous search in the night of friday was fruitless.
However the Cp said in the early hours of saturday 14th October, 2023, a day after Master Pam went missing that a pair of shoes belonging to the little boy was found close to a handwritten note stating that “If he wants his child, he should give us N5m and that he should not call them but send a text message through the phone number below”.
Upon receipt of the report, a team of Police operatives led by SP Okala Ugbede swung into action and were able to trace the kidnappers and arrested one of the culprits, Elijah Anthony a 17-Year-old teenager who lives in the same compound with the boy.
The Police commissioner said that Anthony confessed to have conspired with one Malic to kidnapped the victim from his father’s compound to an uncompleted building not far from the community where they kept him and tied his mouth with elastic cloth to stop him from shouting.
He also confessed that after collecting the sum of Four Hundred Thousand Naira (N400,000.00) from the victim’s parents, his accomplice the said Malic who is now at large strangled the victim while he held his hands and legs.
The duo later took the body of the little boy and dumped same in a swampy place close to an uncompleted building.
The police acting on intel gathered during interrogation visited the scene where they recovered the corpse and took it to the Plateau State Hospital for confirmation and necessary action after which it was released to the parents for burial.
CP Julius Alawari later said that Investigation was still ongoing with a view to arresting the fleeing suspects and any other accomplice for prosecution.
