Kidnapper proprietor explains why he killed 5-year-old pupil with rat poison
A 30-year-old Kano school proprietor, Abdulmalik Mohammed, who confessed to have kidnapped and killed a five-year-old female pupil after he was arrested alongside his 37-year-old accomplice, Hashim Isyaku, has explained that he murdered the victim because she recognised him.
The state police public relations officer, Abdullahi Haruna-Kiyawa, said the suspect had demanded N6 million ransom from the parents of the girl.
He was said to have received part of the payment before he later poisoned her to death and buried her in the premises of the school where she was a student.
Speaking to newsmen on Friday at the headquarters of the state police command in Bompai, Kano, Tanko confessed that he killed the girl with a rat poison he had procured for just N100.
The suspect said he decided to kidnap one of his pupils for money as a way to improve his financial situation and take care of his indebtedness to the owner of the structure housing his school, Noble Kids Academy, Kano.
“I have three children. It was desperation to pay the debts I was owing that made me commit the crime,” he said.
Tanko said he had demanded a ransom of N6 million from the victim’s parents but he used the N100, 000 that they could come up with to pay the salaries of his teachers.
Hanifa’s uncle, Suraj Suleiman, confirmed the killing of his niece and the recovery of her remains within the premises of the mushroom private school in Tudunwada, Nasarawa local government area of the state.
Suleiman said the suspects first took Hanifa to his wife for keeping but the woman refused to take custody of the victim.
He said: “After his wife rejected to keep Hanifa, he took her to Tudunwada where he operates the private school and fed her with tea laced with rat poison.
“After poisoning and killing her, the kidnapper cut her body into pieces and buried them within the school.”
It was gathered that the suspect was arrested on Thursday at a location on Zaria Road, Kano, while attempting to collect the second tranche of the ransom.
Little Hanifa was been lured into a commercial tricycle at about 5.00 p.m. on December 4, 2021, and driven away by her abductors.
Meanwhile, the Kano State government has ordered the indefinite closure of the school, and President Muhammadu Buhari expressed the nation’s condolences to the family of Hanifa whose body was discovered in a shallow grave after about two months of fruitless search.
The order for the closure of the school was contained in a statement issued on Friday in Kano by the chief public relations officer, state ministry of education, Aliyu Yusuf.
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