An eight-year-old girl who was the main witness in the kidnapping of her four-year-old brother has been admitted to a local hospital after a gang in Bihar, India, chopped off her right arm.
The girl, Uzma Ara, had come to Patna on Thursday night with her parents to meet Bihar’s director general of police Abhayanand to seek the release of the kidnapped boy when the criminals attacked her with a sword and chopped off her right arm. The family live in Laheriasarai town in north Bihar’s Darbhanga district.
According to a complaint lodged by the victim’s father, Ainul Ansari, after they reached the state capital by train on Thursday night, they were looking for a hotel to stay in when the criminals, who had followed them from Darbhanga, suddenly attacked his daughter with a sword and fled the scene under the cover of darkness. In the incident, the girl’s right arm was cut off at the shoulder and fell on the ground. The girl has been admitted to the local Patna Medical College and Hospital in a serious condition.
Ansari, who ekes out a living as a tailor, said the criminals had asked for Rs300,000 (N819,162) from him over the past few months. He reported the matter to the local police twice but they took no notice of his complaint.
He eventually paid the money to the criminals. But, according to him, the greed of the criminals increased once he obliged them, and they asked for another Rs100,000 (N273,000).
When they refused to pay more, the criminals kidnapped their four-year-old son Julfikar after which Ansari registered a case against the criminals. It was in connection with the case that the family had travelled to Patna to make an appeal to the police to rescue the boy. The criminals had put pressure on the family to pay the money and withdraw the case in exchange for the release of the boy. But the family refused.
“We have registered the case and launched search operations to catch the criminals,” said Patna’s senior superintendent of police Manu Maharaj.