Female Kidnapper caught with 2 Children in Lagos Market

At the Ojuwoye Market in Mushin, Lagos, suspected female kidnapper was apprehended and almost lynched, for reportedly kidnapping two children.

The Punch reports the drama started after a market woman, Modinat, laid her children – Hammed Rasheed (six years old) and Farida Raheed (two years old) – to sleep and was attending to a customer when the suspected kidnapper snatched the children and fled.

She was apprehended by a resident who knew the mother of the children and challenged her to explain how she got to have the kids without their mother present. When the suspect couldn’t give a satisfactory response, the resident raised an alarm.

Speaking with the press, a witness, Saheed Bayedun, said:

“The children’s mother is a trader in the market. She left the children to attend to a customer. The kidnapper, who is about 22 years old, sneaked in and took them away before the mother suspected anything.

“She used a piece of cloth on the floor to strap the younger girl, Farida, to her back, and held Hammed by the hand. She was escaping from the vicinity when someone challenged her.

“The person raised the alarm when she couldn’t give a satisfactory response. A mob gathered and rescued the children before beating her to a pulp.

“She asked for palm oil, but nobody gave her. She later confessed that there were six of them recruited to kidnap children. She said they all came from Osogbo, Osun State, and were mandated to abduct eight children each. She said she had already abducted six children and was about getting the remaining two when she was caught.”

The kidnapper refused to say her name and address and she would have been lynched, save for the police officers who stormed the scene on time.

Confirming the incident, the Police Public Relations Officer, SP Dolapo Badmos, said:

“At about 12pm on Saturday, two children were allegedly abducted by the suspect at Ojuwoye Market. However, the mother alerted the police. The kidnapper was trailed and arrested with one of the victims on her back. They were rescued and reunited with their family. The suspect, who refused to give her name and address, is now in police custody and undergoing interrogation.”