Manhunt on for students’ kidnappers

MANILA, Philippines - The Makati City police has formed a team to hunt down the persons who abducted two students, an official said yesterday.

City police chief Senior Superintendent Ernesto Barlam said he ordered officers from the intelligence unit and the women and children protection desk to identify the students’ kidnappers and track them down.

Barlam said “it is too early” to say whether the abductions were done by the same group, but assured the public that the incidents are “isolated” and no group is roaming the city and abducting women.

He added that they have also started gathering footage from closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras set up along the streets taken by the assailants during the abductions.

“We have also asked the two victims if they could recall the streets where the suspects have driven so we could retrieve CCTV footage if possible,” Barlam said.

The first victim, a 21-year-old first year college student, told police she was walking near the EDSA-Magallanes interchange at around 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 30 when three men grabbed her and forced her into a van, where she lost consciousness when they covered her nose with a handkerchief soaked with a chemical.

The student said the van was driven by a fourth man and had no license plates.

She said she woke up in a grassy area in Malolos, Bulacan at around 3 a.m. the next day. She said she was naked from the waist down and her whole body ached.

According to her, a woman and her daughter helped her, gave her clothes and food and accompanied her to Monumento.

Barlam said the victim formally filed her complaint with the police last Oct. 1.

Last Monday, a 14-year-old girl told police she was abducted by men in a van along Kalayaan Avenue in Makati while she was on her way to Makati High School at about 10 a.m.

The student said she was able to escape from her abductors when they stopped at a gasoline station along J.P. Rizal street at around 3 p.m.

Barlam said the second victim was not raped by her abductors during her five-hour ordeal. The girl, however, later told her mother that the van’s driver molested her.

The girl was reunited with her mother at the Manila Police District’s Station 9.