Gunmen in police and military uniforms, on Saturday, kidnapped seven people at a football viewing centre in Birnin Magaji town, the headquarters of Birnin Magaji local government area of Zamfara State.
The owner of the viewing centre Sanusi Iliyasu Ishie told Daily Trust that about 20 armed men arrived at the football viewing centre, located at the outskirts of the town, around 10: O0 pm, stopped some meters away from the center and sent for the operator.
“When the operator came, they asked: ‘Is this Sanusi’s football viewing centre?’ He answered them in affirmative because himself and many other residents mistook them as security operatives,” Sanusi said.
“They then held him hostage, dashed into the centre and indiscriminately started picking people, and when the football viewers realized that they were under siege they started stampeding out of the centre screaming for help in panic, they picked six of the viewers trying to escape,” he added.
Sanusi further explained that the gunmen then crossed a river and fired several gunshots in to the air before they disappeared into the forest.
He said the kidnappers were yet to call anyone for ransom.
The spokesman of the state police command SP Muhammad Shehu said he would respond later when our reporter contacted him. “Give me some time. I will call you back”, he said.
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