Two held over cop-aided abduction probe

Two persons were yesterday arrested and taken into custody as investigations continued into allegations made by a teenage girl that she was abducted with the aid of a policeman.

The girl, 16, was recently reunited with her family after an almost one-week disappearance and her relatives have called upon high level officials to investigate that matter after conflicting reports of the nature of the incident surfaced.

According to a source close to the family, the girl was accompanied by members of the Tuschen Policing Group to the home, where she was allegedly kept for the most part of the ordeal. There, she identified a woman and her kidnapper’s brother who were subsequently arrested. Also present in the house was another minor, aged 15, who claimed to be the woman’s granddaughter.

However, it was reported that the girl is actually in a relationship with the suspect’s brother. The three were taken to the Leonora Police Station, where they remain in custody as they assist with investigations.

Meanwhile, police received information that the main suspect in the kidnapping has escaped to Berbice in the light of recent reports in this newspaper and is currently being pursued by police.

The girl’s parents, up to press time, were at the Leonora Police Station as well providing statements.

According to reports, the 16-year-old local, who now resides in Suriname, returned to Guyana last week and was on March 9 kidnapped from her grandparents’ Maida, Corentyne, Berbice home. The matter was reported to the Whim and New Amsterdam Police Stations.

While police were investigating the issue, the child’s grandparents received information that the girl was being kept at a home in Tuschen, New Scheme, East Bank Essequibo where a man and woman reside.

Acting on this information, the police visited the home of an individual known as ‘Bibi’ who was escorted to the Leonora Police Station for questioning but was subsequently released.

The child however turned up at the Whim Police Station on Thursday in the company of a male and female and was asked to give a statement before her relatives were notified.

It was alleged that the officer who prepared the statement is known to the “kidnapper” and threatened the child to lock her up or take her to Bartica and kill her if she refused to sign the document. After signing the statement, the source said, the girl was informed that she signed to “running away with a boy”.

Meanwhile once at home, the child told relatives that she was kidnapped and taken to Bush Lot, West Coast Berbice then to the Tuschen home.