Saturday, January 12, 2013

Outrage as ritualists behead, disembowel 3-yr-old girl

In what can only be described as a story of man’s inhumanity to man, suspected ritualists in Ilorin, Kwara State, have thrown a family into a life of unforgettable sorrow.
The sad occurrence jolted the residents of Ile Onigboro, Ita Elefun, Ita Ogunbo areas in Ilorin West local government area of Kwara State into the reality of this wicked world as they lamented the murder of three-year-old Aliya Usman by suspected ritualists on Tuesday.
The severed head of the victim of the dastardly act was discovered at a refuse dump, covered with a polythene bag while the remains of her body were deposited at a newly constructed septic tank.
Saturday Tribune gathered that her left wrist, left leg, private part and her entire intestine with other organs like hearts and kidney were removed by the killers, in a murder many have described as callous and heartless.
Also at the scene was a used syringe carefully wrapped with a red piece of cloth, suggesting that her abductors drugged her before carrying out the act.
Speaking with Saturday Tribune, the mother of the deceased, Mrs. Aminat Usman, said that the incident was a rude shock to her, adding that the family had lost the immediate younger brother of the deceased, AbdulSamad, to illness about 10 months ago.
Usman, who said she had to prepare rice for the family on that fateful day when she woke up because Aliya didn’t eat her dinner the previous day (Monday night), added that she braided the deceased’s hair after she had eaten.
“However, I never knew that I was preparing her for the final journey home,” she added.
The deceased’s mother, a petty trader at Adabata, Ilorin, who was living in Lagos State, relocated to Ilorin with her husband to enable them take care of their children.
She said she became suspicious of evil that was about to befall her when her husband, Tajudeen Usman, a driver who plies Ilorin-Lagos route at Sawmill Motorpark, Ilorin, enquired after the deceased around noon that day.
“I told him that she should be with other children at her grandfather’s place. When I didn’t see her at the time I expected, I became suspicious because this was very unusual of her. But after a frantic search for her yielded no result up till about 7:00pm, my body mechanism changed. At that moment, I felt cold. It was the shout from the search team later the next morning around 6:00am that threw the neighbourhood into agony,” she lamented.
Also speaking on the incident, a younger brother to Aliya’s father, AbdulRasheed Usman, an Islamic cleric, said the community made announcement on the missing girl in almost all the mosques in the area, adding that the family was outside looking for her up till about midnight.
Also speaking, the grandfather of the victim, Usman Alabi, who said they reported the case to both C and A divisional police stations in the state after the girl was discovered missing, said the perpetrators must have monitored the girl’s movement for some time.
He suspected that those involved in the dastardly killing are in the community, particularly with the manner they operated and the traces they left behind.
“When I woke up on Tuesday morning, before going to the mosque, I searched around the compound again and found no trace of her. It was one of those I woke up while going to the mosque that discovered a slight change from the way the newly constructed soak away was covered. We found her body there and later found the head in the refuse dump,” he said.
Sympathisers that thronged the scene of the incident said what baffled them about the occurrence was that the corpse and the severed head were deposited in the refuse dump and septic tank located at the back of the house of the deceased’s parents.
They then concluded that the development said much that those involved in the act are those people in the neighbourhood and called on security agencies to carry out a thorough investigation to unearth the series of mysterious killings that had occurred in the neighbourhood.
The people in the community said that similar occurrence happened late last year when a body of a teenager was beheaded the same day it was buried.
The father of the deceased, Mr. Tajudeen Usman, had however, directed that the corpse be buried when he returned from the C divisional police station at Oja, according to Islamic rite.
Reacting to the incident, the Balogun Ajikobi of Ilorin, Alhaji Isa Balogun Ajikobi, described the incident as pathetic and unfortunate, expressing the disbelief that such incident could happen within Ilorin metropolis at this age.
“It is terrible and beyond what one could comment on that people could be so heartless. I pray for God to give the family the fortitude to bear the loss and for the perpetrators to know that they will be fully recompensed by Allah on the day of judgment.
“People should be God fearing and keep God in mind in whatever they do. Whoever is misled by the pleasures of life should know that they will account for their actions.
“This is beyond compehension and the fact that this town is a Muslim town makes it all the more incomprehensible,” he said.
 On Wednesday morning, the father of the deceased said that the DCO of the C division police station, ASP Christopher Umoh and members of the State Security Service had visited the neighbourhood.
It was also gathered that the Chief Imam of Ilorin, Alhaji Muhammed Basheer, had, through the Magaji Nda of Ilorin, Alhaji Saliu Woru, commenced discussion with the four Baloguns in the town on how to curb the rising menace.
Aliya is the third child in a family of four after Habeeb and Mujeeb Amina is at present pregnant with another child.
When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer of the Kwara State police command, DSP Femi Fabode, said he was in Abuja on an official assignment, but added that investigation has commenced on the act.
TRIBUNE

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