KAMPALA – Police in Lira District have arrested an 18-year-old student on allegations of faking her kidnap. Teddy Twinomashiko, a first-year student at Kyambogo University, was arrested from Lira University last Friday, where she was living with Hasad Muyanja, 21, whom police suspect to be her lover.
Trouble started last week when Twinomashiko reportedly sent several text messages to her parents claiming she had been kidnapped. Her phone was later traced.
According to the annual crime report by the police, Kidnaps have been motivated by the demand for ransom, vengeance by lovers, terrorism, extortion or self-gain from relatives and ritual purposes among others.
A total of 202 persons were registered as victims of kidnap in 2018. Of these, 16 victims were killed, 84 victims were rescued by police and 99 among others were self-kidnap whereas three were still missing by the time of releasing the report.
Since 2019 began, the media have reported at last 10 people killed by shooting or using other deadly weapons in Kampala metropolitan alone. Key among them is the one in May when three workers of Cheap General Hardware in Nansana Town on Hoima Road were killed during broad day light by masked gunmen who later grabbed more than Shs300m cash. The robbery lasted about 30 minutes without security response. On June 11, gunmen killed Harriet Naluwadde and Moreen Nakabubi, mobile money agents in Zzana area on Entebbe highway and the assailants escaped on motorcycles.
