The Abia State Police Command says it has intensified efforts to arrest a woman simply identified as Jane, for allegedly stealing a five-month old baby from her mother at Ebem, in Ohafia LGA of the state on March 2.
The Abia Police Commissioner, Mr. Ene Okon, who confirmed the incident, yesterday, said that the event, which happened on Monday, March 2, was only reported to the police by the family on Saturday, March 7.
Okon said the police quickly arrested a relative of Jane who lives in Ebem-Ohafia with whom the police planned to send them to Rivers State to search for Jane who lives in Port Harcourt.
He denied that the Ebem-Ohafia DPO sent the couple and the suspect’s relative to Port Harcourt to search for Jane without any letter or police operative accompanying them on the journey.
The baby’s parents, Adam Imoh and Ijeoma Imoh, said that the baby was stolen from a shop where Mrs. Imoh was working with her sister in the latter’s hairdressing salon on March 2.
Mrs. Imoh said Jane visited the salon and on sighting her baby boy named Faith, she began to praise Faith, who she said is plump and handsome.
In her words, “She carried him and bought him biscuits and later dropped him before leaving the shop. She returned later with babies’ cloth for him and it was not long she now carried him and after staying a while in the shop, she said she wanted to go to collect her phone which was charging in a nearby shop.”
Mrs. Imoh said at that juncture, she unsuspectingly asked her daughter to accompany Jane to the shop with baby Faith so that if the baby starts to cry, she can bring him back.
She said that after some minutes; she began to feel the baby’s absence, and she went out to check for Jane at the shop she said she was going to.
Mrs. Imoh said that on her way, she saw her young daughter whom she sent to accompany Jane returning on top of a motorcycle.
She continued, “I asked her where is Jane, and she told me that Jane had entered a car with my baby.
“At that point, I ran off to the shop Jane said she was going to collect her phone from, and at the shop, I was told that Jane had left the shop some minutes ago”.
