Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Zadock Angira and Nyaboga Kiage

Hafsa Mohamed Lukman, the woman who was abducted on June 15 was rescued from a dingy room, inside a 200-litre water drum, in Nairobi’s Kayole estate, yesterday.

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) also arrested a 24-year-old man suspected to be part of the gang that kidnapped her.

Her kidnappers had demanded a Sh5 million ransom. On July 16 at 11.30pm, the abductors send a text message to a member of  the family to demand the ransom.

The gang would later release a heartrending video in which the tortured woman is pleading with her family to meet the demands of the kidnappers to save her life.

“The kidnappers constantly kept sending videos and images of Hafsa to her family threatening to end her life if the ransom was not sent,” police said.

In one of the images and videos, the gang had tied her up and apparently beaten her.

Lukman was rescued from the unoccupied two-roomed house in Matopeni after children who were playing around the house heard her screams.

The children found a note with a mobile phone contact and a message. They then alerted their parents who alerted the detectives.

“We were playing when we heard a woman scream from the house. When the screams persisted, we decided to check.

She asked us to help her leave the room and also asked for drinking water,” one girl said.

The gang had meticulously planned the kidnap in advance. Detectives revealed that they had rented the house early this month.

“It is suspected the house was specifically rented for the purpose of executing the kidnap,” a police source said.

The operation was conducted by the DCI’s Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau and the Special Service Unit.

“The badly shaken woman who had bruises on her face and hands was rushed to hospital.

One 24-year-old suspect, who is part of the gang that kidnapped her, was arrested and is being interviewed by detectives,” the DCI said. 

The victim was last captured on CCTV footage at a shopping mall in Kamukunji.

By yesterday evening, she was still in shock and could not tell how she was taken to the house in Kayole and later abandoned.

Detectives told People Daily that the captors had been transferring the woman to various houses within the estate to avoid detection.

Lukman said the kidnappers would force her into an empty water drum, which sometimes she would be transported in. During this period, she was fed once on rice and juice.

Stained clothes

Still missing is Hafsa Abdulwahab, 21, who was last seen on CCTV footage in the company of Lukman.

Speaking to People Daily, Abdulwahab’s sister Zuhura Zuheira said the family had visited several hospitals and even mortuaries in search for her without success.

“Every member of the family has been tasked to make rounds in different areas in the hope of finding her,” she said.

Zuheira said the clothes and shoes, which her sister was last seen wearing, were found within Kayole stained with blood.

Last week, Mombasa Resident Magistrate Vincent Adet postponed the trial of Faiza Ali Hassan, the main suspects in the murder of 19-year-old Najma Abdullahi Maalim.

The case was adjourned after the defendant claimed that she could neither speak nor understand English and Kiswahili.

Hassan is alleged to be the last person seen with Najma after visiting her at her home in Changamwe on the evening of June 9.

Najma was later found unconscious at Dongo Kundu Bypass in Mombasa by good Samaritans who took her to PortReitz Sub-County hospital where she died while undergoing treatment.