Police officer killed, 23 abducted as bandits attack Kaduna communities

Bandits have killed a police inspector and abducted 23 people during attacks on Ungwan Maje and Ungwan Laka communities in Chikun LGA of Kaduna state.

TheCable understands that the bandits invaded the communities in the early hours of Wednesday.

They were said to have shot sporadically as the villagers scampered for safety.

An eyewitness said: “The bandits first attacked Ungwan Maje, where they abducted 16 persons, majority of them women and children.

“The bandits later attacked Ungwan Laka, where a mobile police inspector, Joshua Markus, who came to visit his family from Rivers state was killed.

“The bandits abducted seven persons, including the wife and daughter of the deceased policeman.”

A retired military personnel, who is a resident of Ungwan Laka, was said to have narrowly escaped with his family. However, his car and motorcycle were burnt by the hoodlums.

The corpse of the police inspector was said to have been deposited at the Saint Gerald Catholic Hospital, Kaduna.

When contacted, Mohammad Jalige, the spokesman of the Kaduna state police command, said he was not aware of the incident.

He promised to make findings on the incident, but at the time of filing this report, he was yet to revert.

Kaduna is among the states in the north-west facing serious security challenges, with rampant cases of killings and abductions recorded almost on a daily basis.