Police Operatives have arrested a deadly criminal gang responsible for the kidnap and murder of a Catholic Seminarian, Nnadi Michael, of the Catholic Good Shepherd Major Seminary at Gonin Gora, Kakau in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
Recall that on January 9, 2020, the criminal gang stormed the Catholic Seminary and kidnapped four seminarians, murdered one of them in cold blood and released the remaining three on January 31, 2020, having obtained a ransom.
The remains of the fourth Seminarian were found in a bush where the killers abandoned it.
The suspects: Tukur Usman, a 37-year-old father of seven; Shehu Bello, 40, a father of 5; and Mustapha Mohammed, 30,a father of one, all male and of Igabi LGA of Kaduna State, were arrested after several months of intensive and extensive intelligence-led operations by crack detectives of the Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team.
Discreet investigations so far revealed that the arrested suspects are part of a 19-man gang that also carried out the kidnap of Dr. Phillip Ataga’s wife and two daughters on January 24, 2020 at Juji Community in Chikun LGA of Kaduna State.
Ataga was killed by the gang following her heroic resistance to the despicable and inhuman attempt by the leader of the gang to rape her.
The suspects, after killing her, released the daughters and corpse of the slain woman to the family after collecting ransom.
Further investigations revealed that the same criminal gang is responsible for the kidnap of six students and two teachers of Engravers College, Chikun LGA, Kaduna, from their school premises on October 3, 2019.
The suspects, known to belong to a hybrid terrorist criminal network causing untold havoc in North Central, Nigeria, have confessed to several other random operations along Abuja-Kaduna Expressway, where they kidnapped, killed and robbed motorists, collecting ransom and valuables running into millions of naira.
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, while reiterating that the Force will remain unrelenting in ensuring that crimes across the country are reduced to the barest minimum, assured the nation that the Force will not rest until the other members of the gang also responsible for the above crimes, but currently on the run, are apprehended and brought to book.