By Haruna Mohammed Salisu

BAUCHI State Police Command has arrested one Umar Mohammed, alias Wulas, a 46-year-old  who reportedly defiled his 15-year-old daughter.

The police in a statement said the suspect removed her cloth and raped her in her mother’s room.

The suspect had since confessed to committing the crime but the investigation was still ongoing after which the suspect “will be charged to court for prosecution as soon as possible, the police authorities said.

A press statement signed by DSP Ahmed Mohammed Wakil, the Police Public Relations Officer of the Bauchi Command on Wednesday said other 19 suspected rapists were arrested by the command on gender-based violence-related crimes.

The ICIR had tracked 108 suspects paraded by the Bauchi State Police Command between April and September, but none of the suspects had been tried and convicted.

The statement said the suspects were in six local government areas of the state.

DSP Wakil citing other suspects in the statement said on September 8, a report was received at Misau Police Station that one Usman Adamu of Nasarawa area Misau, 20, criminally conspired with Adamu Muhammad 21yrs, Nura Musa 20yrs and Khalid Abdullahi now at large abducted the victim, a 14-year-old at Hardawa area and kept her in a house for almost a month.

The police disclosed that all suspects mentioned above had canal knowledge of her before she was rescued and sent for medical examination at General Hospital Misau.

The statement said a medical examination had confirmed that the victim was serially raped by her captors.

Citing another incident in Toro, the statement said revealed how one Hussein Adamu raped a mentally-ill woman of Badikko who was “receiving treatment based on her psychiatric problem.”

The statement said the suspect demanded the sum of 10,000 from the mentally-challenged woman, whom he later raped for failing to offer him the requested money.

The police said the suspect had confessed to committing the crime and would soon be charged to court.

Wakil in the statement called on the general public to continue to cooperate with the police in order to fish out such suspected criminals.

The ICIR had reported about how cases of rape, forced marriages and domestic violence against women continue to soar in Bauchi State amidst the police inability to prosecute the suspects. 

In an exhaustive investigation in July, The ICIR had unearthed how Bauchi State is fast becoming an unsafe place for innocent children as young as four years.

The series documented how more than 300 women and girls were serially violated in rape and domestic violence as authorities continue to look away.

Although Bauchi State had adopted and domesticated the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act which stipulated stiffer penalties for culprits, enforcement of the laws remains a challenge.