The vigilante operatives in Darmanawa area of Tarauni LGA of Kano State have arrested one stranger (name withheld) for allegedly attempting to kidnap a 9-year-old-girl in the area.
The girl, Fauziyya Muhammed, alongside her two sisters, were sent to download film by their parents in a nearby communication centre in the area.
However, the man followed the girls and promised to give them toys if they followed him to a nearby location.
“Her sisters came back home crying and said their sister was dragged to some place by someone who promised to give her a toy. We alerted people, who followed him to a graveyard and that was where they caught him,” he mother said.
Meanwhile, the suspect said he was not trying to kidnap the girl but to snatch her phone, adding that he promised to give her a toy.
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“I just wanted to collect the phone she was holding, that is why I asked her sisters to wait. Before I even collected the phone, people traced and arrested me,” he confessed.
The vigilante officials and committee of the community said they will hand him over to the police after their meetings and investigations.
Kano has been battling with phone snatching activities in recent days, causing some people to call for the declaration of phone snatchers as armed robbers.
Ashiru Yusuf Yakasai, the chairman of phone sellers in Kano, said, “We have cases where phone snatchers are sentenced as petty criminals. They will go to prison and come back to continue what they were doing, despite the fact that they carry dangerous weapons and even injured people.
“The only way out is for the state House of Assembly and all relevant stakeholders to declare them as armed robbers.”
