Police will probe Akwamuman SHS 'kidnapping' - Effia Tengey

ASP Effia Tengey, Police Public Relations Officer of the Greater Accra Region, has revealed that investigations will be conducted into the case of a missing student at the Akwamuman Senior High School in the Eastern Region.

This follows a complaint filed by Mawutor Azalekor, a resident of Maamobi, a suburb of Accra, that her teenage daughter was kidnapped from school.

Mr Azalekor narrated to Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom on Accra100.5FM, Thursday June 22, that he and his wife decided to pay a surprise visit to their child in school to find out how she was doing and that was when they realised that she was not on campus.

Upon reaching the school, the headmistress could not tell the whereabouts of their child and they contacted her friends who also had no knowledge of where their daughter was.

He then reported the matter to the Kotobabi Police in Accra but after several months, her daughter has still not been found.

He said: “Ruth is the only girl among my four children and a student at Akwamuman Senior High School. One day we decided to pay a surprise visit. But the headmistress of the school couldn’t tell me her whereabouts. She told me when I visited the school in January that she had not set her eyes on my daughter for two weeks.

“We have called almost all her friends but they all don’t know where she is. She is very active on Facebook and so I visited her page to check whether she had posted any current event. When I did, I saw that she had posted a picture of herself and a friend, and so I went to the parents of that friend to ask whether she had seen my daughter. But the mother of that friend also told me that her daughter was missing and that they were looking for their child.”

He added: “We have reported the matter to the Kotobabi Police Station but till now nothing has been done about it.”

But also speaking in an interview with show host Forson on Thursday, ASP Tenge said: “Occasionally, we get such reports and when we do, we treat them as any other case, we assign an investigator who will work with the complainant on that particular case.

“I have listened to the story of the missing student. The parent said he had reported the matter to the Kotobabi Police, so we will revisit the case and get to the bottom.

“But let me add that the school authorities should be held responsible and be questioned. If somebody leaves her child in your care, it is up to you to ensure that that child is safe. Even if anything at all, the school authorities should have informed the parents that their child had not been seen for a while, but you don’t just sit unconcerned and wait for the parents to rather come and be searching for the child they left in your care.

“Similarly, the children will also need to be talked to. Some of them are very deviant and disobedient.”