Bandits have kidnapped students of Hizburrahim Islamiyya School in Mahuta village of Dandume Local Government Area of Katsina State.
The Islamic students were said to have been abducted while returning from Maulud celebration at Alkasim village of the local government on Saturday night.
This is coming barely four days after the release of 344 students of Government Science Secondary Kankara, who were kidnapped on December 11.
A resident of Dandume, Sani Muhammed, who confirmed the abduction of the students in a telephone interview with THISDAY on Sunday, said security personnel had engaged the hoodlums.
He said: “As we speak, a combined security team are trying to rescue the students and other women who were kidnapped by the bandits yesterday (Saturday) night”.
However, the spokesman of the State Police Command, SP Gambo Isah, in a statement on Sunday, said all the abducted students had been rescued by operatives of Operation Puff Adder and Sharan Daji.
He said: “On 19/12/2020 at about 2200hrs, a distress call was received by DPO Dandume, that some Islamiyya Students of Hizburrahim Islamiyya, Mahuta village, Dandume LGA of Katsina state, numbering 80 while on their way back from Maulud occasion celebrated at Unguwan Alkasim village, Dandume to Mahuta village, were accosted by bandits who had already kidnapped four persons and rustled 12 cows from Danbaure village, Funtua LGA, trying to escape into the forest.
“On receipt of the report, the DPO led Operations “Puff Adder, Sharan Daji and Vigilante group to the area and engaged the bandits in a fierce gun duel.
“Subsquently, the teams succeeded in dislodging the bandits and rescued all the eighty four (84) kidnapped victims and recovered all the twelve rustled cows”.
He explained that earch parties were combing the area in order to arrest the “injured bandits and recovery of their dead bodies”.
Credit: THISDAY