by Achadu Gabriel, Kaduna
As the country’s deteriorating economic situation further worsens, robbery and shops burgling crimes, undertaken by mainly teenage boys, have become rampant in some communities within Kaduna Town.
Areas mostly and widely reported in recent times include Sabon Tasha, Gonin Gora, U/Boro and some parts of Tudun Wada, Kawo and U/Rimi, respectively, among others.
In Gonin Gora, the menace has become a recurring decimal with seven teens, including a 7 years’ old boy recent arrested and handover to the police over alleged burgling of food restaurant shops, according to a local source, Peter Endurance.
Finding revealed that the particular boy’s gangs had been arrested on several occasions, detained in juvenile cells, but could not help matters, as the boy continues to appear in several other crime scene situation involving shops burgling.
The case of the teenage burglar culprit has gone viral in the area that a mother had reportedly cried to police and begged them to take him to prison custody, but police refused, on grounds that he’s an underage.
According to eyewitness account, these groups of boys burgled shops – mostly restaurants, provision shops, among others, and carted away food items and other items such as cooking utensils, and sold them.
“They don’t break through the doors but through the back wall in most cases, because small holes are enough for the small-sized boy burglars to penetrate and do the needful,” the source said.
In some instances, the boys were thoroughly caught and beaten to the point of coma by neighborhood, but that could not deter them from perpetrating the crimes, apparently owning to the severity of hunger and starvation.
While the incidents were being perpetrated, a case of a motorcyclist, who was slaughtered, and body dumped by the side of Abuja Junction overhead bridge, rented air as his motorbike and phone were reportedly taken away by the killers.
In another horrible incident, a bike man, who took passengers from Gonin Gora to U/Boro around Sabon Tasha, was reportedly thoroughly beaten on arrival but was able to overpower the attackers.
The eyewitness account stressed that, “Even though, he managed to overpower the attackers and rescued himself and his bike, in an attempt to collect the bike from him, the victim was, however, left with near-fractured body, severed and permanent injury, and is battling with treatment.”
Also contacted for more clarification, the spokesman of Kaduna State Police Command, ASP Mansir Hassan, could not respond until the time of filing this report.