The Intelligence Response Team (IRT) – a special police unit fighting kidnapping – has made a breakthrough with the arrest of a woman who allegedly supplies young girls to bandits at the Galadimawa forest in Giwa Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
Maryam Abubakar, a housewife and resident of Rugar Hanwa in Sabon Gari Local Government Area, who was arrested on December 21, confessed that she has been luring women, including her own daughters and nieces, to the bandits for sexual pleasure.
Maryam said her clients pay her N20,000, adding that the girls are ususlly ferried to the forest on motorbikes.
Also arrested was a girl named Fatima Jibril, who, in connivance with her boyfriend,Muslim Abubakar – both residents of the Sakadadi area in Sabon Gari – supply other girls to the bandits for romp.
The syndicate was exposed when the girls they had earlier procured for the criminals in the forest failed to return.
Another woman, Jummai Ibrahim, was arrested on the suspicion that she has been having amorous affair with the bandits’ kingpin in the forest.
Ibrahim said she submitted herself to the kingpin to protect her children and her father from their wrath because the bandits threatened to kill them, even after they had rustled the family’s cattle.
Some of the women said they passed only one night with the bandits.
One of them said the gunmen were living alongside their wives, only that they are hosted at different locations separate from their families.
One of the girls said the gunmen were inseparable from their weapons round the clock, and they have s stockpile of food.
The arrested women were, however, remorseful for having sexual dealings with the bandits in the forest.