Abduction of missing Indian nationals a ‘multi-agency operation’: Kenyan police

Mumbai The Kenyan investigating officer probing the disappearance of Indian nationals Zulfiqar Khan and Zaid Sami Kidwai on Thursday told a Kenyan court that the duo’s abduction was a ‘multi agency operation’ and that more arrests would be soon made in the case

Mumbai The Kenyan investigating officer probing the disappearance of Indian nationals Zulfiqar Khan and Zaid Sami Kidwai on Thursday told a Kenyan court that the duo’s abduction was a ‘multi agency operation’ and that more arrests would be soon made in the case.

Abduction of missing Indian nationals a ‘multi-agency operation’: Kenyan police

The Internal Affairs Unit (IAU) of the Kenya police has so far arrested nine Kenyan police officers in connection with the alleged abduction of Khan, Kidwai and their Kenyan taxi driver, Nicodemus Mwange. The trio went missing from the Ole Sereni area in Kenya on July 22 this year.

During a hearing on Thursday, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Wilhelm Kibet, IAU stated, “The interception and subsequent abduction of the three missing persons was as a result of a multi-agency operation. The suspects have been identified and we are in the process of tracing and arresting them. Proof of the same at this juncture would be prejudicial.”

The nine cops arrested so far were last posted with the Special Services Unit (SSU), a free-wheeling unit of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations accused of gross misuse of power, including kidnapping and torture of dissidents. Recently elected Kenyan President William Ruto had disbanded the SSU immediately after taking charge of his office.

Kibet, in his affidavit, reiterated the statement he had made in an earlier filing; that he and his unit were under threat ever since they took up the investigation.

“Ever since we took over the investigations, the team has received intelligence that they have been profiled by persons who are still at large, and are within the Security Sector connected to these investigations. Therefore, there is apprehension of active threats to their lives,” Kibet said in an affidavit, a copy of which is available with HT.

The IAU has so far found Call Detail Records that place the arrested cops either at the Mombasa Road, where Khan and Kidwai were staying, or at Westlands, where they had gone for dinner on the night of their disappearance. Kibet goes on to state that the arrested cops have denied being involved in the offence but, when confronted with technical evidence placing them at the scene of the crime, were unable to provide satisfactory responses.

The affidavit, however, still does not refer to the victims being dead. Khan’s family, too, has categorically denied any reports of their death. His elder brother, Iftikhar Khan, had earlier visited Kenya to examine the items recovered by the IAU so far, and submitted a written undertaking to the Kenyan government, stating that none of the items belong to his brother.

The IAU has sought to obtain DNA samples from the arrested cops so that they can be compared with samples taken from the recovered items. The cops, in turn, have claimed that their DNA could be planted at the Aberdare National Park - from where the items were recovered - and the IAU has refuted this claim, calling it a “hoax” in its affidavit.