Edo Police Command says it rescued 17 victims from kidnappers after gun battle inside a forest in Edo State.
The police stormed the forest on Sunday and freed victims of heinous crime.
The Command’s spokesman, SP Chidi Nwabuzor, disclosed this on Wednesday in a statement.
The statement noted that the rescued victims – male and female, were among 20 passengers traveling from Delta state to Lagos state in a mass transit bus.
The kidnappers allegedly waylaid them between Ugbogui and Ohosu communities, along Benin–Lagos Expressway.
“The kidnapped but rescued victims were passengers of a mass transit bus who were travelling from Delta State heading to Lagos state, but were attacked and kidnapped by six (6) herdsmen who emerged from the bush with AK-47 riffles and pump-action guns, shooting sporadically at vehicles and finally kidnapped twenty (20) people into the bush (male and female).
“Immediately, the operatives of Safer High Way, Edo South, alongside other team of police officers covering the long stretch of the express way, moved to the direction of the gun shot, engaged the kidnappers and rescued seventeen (17) persons while three (3) others were taken away into the bush,” the statement said.
Nwabuzor, however, stated that a serious manhunt operation through bush combing strategies had commenced for possible rescue of the three victims unhurt.
Meanwhile, the State Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Dankwara, has given an order to the Command’s Tactical Teams to go after the kidnappers, arrest them and rescue the victims safely.
