Bandits on Wednesday night, raided Kwaita community in Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
During the operation, they shot a pregnant woman, abducted her husband and three others.
A resident told Daily Trust Newspaper that the incident happened around 11pm on Wednesday.
According to him, the kidnappers invaded the houses of their victims and whisked them away after shooting sporadically.
He said the pregnant woman was hit by a stray bullet.
“The entire community was thrown into panic because of the sporadic gunshot,” he said. “They wanted to take the woman along, but when they discovered that she sustained bullets wound and she is pregnant, they pared her.”
He said the pregnant woman has been taken to an undisclosed hospital in Gwagwalada for treatment.
While responding to inquiries from Daily Trust, ASP Maryam Yusuf, Spokesperson of the FCT Police Command, said the police rescued one kidnap victim after a fierce gun duel with the kidnappers.
She said it was in the process of process of repelling the kidnappers that a police officer sustained injuries.
Yusuf added that efforts were being made to apprehend the kidnappers and rescue the victims
In a related development, bandits on Tuesday, abducted scores of villagers, numbering about 60, at Ruwan Tofa village in Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State.
It was gathered that during the attack, vehicles and shops were set ablaze by the bandits.
An eyewitness lamented that his four wives and children were abducted by the armed men who left behind only his seven-year-old child with him.
He explained that a representative of the village head and his entire family, as well as married women, children, and some aged ones were among those abducted.
Residents of the village faulted the response of the security agencies to the attack, saying they made several calls to them as soon as the bandits arrive in the village.
They claimed that the security agencies promised to deploy operatives as soon as possible but none of them was seen up to the time when the bandits left the village.
Efforts to reach the police authorities in Zamfara to confirm the number of those said to have been abducted were not successful as the Public Relations Officer of the command did not pick his calls or reply to text messages sent to him.
The latest attack came barely a day after the release of over 200 students abducted in Jangebe town in Talata Mafara Local Government Area of the state.
On February 26, a group of gunmen invaded the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Jangebe and abducted the students.
Although the police said a total of 317 girls were abducted from the schools, some of the schoolgirls were said to have escaped from the bandits.
The remaining students were released after spending four nights in the custody of the bandits and the state governor, Bello Matawalle, put the figure of those freed at 279.
Their release was said to have triggered another unfortunate incident that reportedly led to the death of one person in Jangebe.
The victim was reportedly shot by security operatives who were said to have opened fire after an angry mob kicked against the insistence on a formal handover before the girls’ parents could leave with them.
In reaction to this, the state government imposed a curfew on the town and suspend market activities in the town to prevent a further breakdown of law and order.
