The police in Kano have arrested a 24-year-old man, Habibu Sale, for allegedly kidnapping and killing an eight-year-old girl, Asiya Tasiu, in Chikawa village of Gabasawa Local Government Area of Kano State.
Sale was said to have kidnapped the girl sometime in June and killed her after collecting a ransom of N500,000.
The spokesman of the police in Kano, DSP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, who confirmed the arrest on Tuesday after a five-month hunt, said investigation was ongoing to arrest the suspect’s accomplices even as he had confessed to have committed the crime alone.
DSP Kiyawa explained that, “Though the suspect confessed to have committed the crime alone, police theory indicates that there are other accomplices at large, because he confessed to have spent the N500,000 ransom on prostitutes, drugs and gambling’’.
DSP Kiyawa, who spoke on behalf of the state Commissioner of Police, Habu A. Sani, said the incident happened on June 5, 2020, and that the police effected his arrest on November 7, 2020.
According to him, police investigation revealed that Sale killed the girl and buried her in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Chikawa village after collecting the ransom.
Father of the deceased girl, Alhaji Tasiu Mohammed Adamu, told journalists at the Bompai police headquarters that the kidnappers demanded N10million ransom “but we later settled for N500,000’’.
Saleh, who confessed to have kidnapped the girl and collected a ransom of N500,000, however, said the girl died when the motorcycle on which he was taking her to their hideout crashed.
Sale explained that, “I travelled to Kaduna State where I stayed and enjoyed with my women friends. We took drugs and indulged in gambling.”
Daily Trust further learnt that the victim had lived in the same area with the suspect, which probably informed his decision to kill her for fear of being exposed after she was released.
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