Police Commissioner Leroy Brummell has ordered an investigation into allegations by a teenage girl who has fingered police in aiding her recent abduction.
The girl, 16, was reunited with her family after an almost one-week disappearance, which her relatives want investigated by high-level officials, in light of conflicting reports they have received and the nature of the claims being made.
The matter was raised at a symposium where both Brummell and Home Minister Clement Rohee were present and Brummell immediately ordered an investigation into the matter, while Rohee asked to be presented with the report.
The girl, who now resides in Suriname, visited Guyana last week and was allegedly kidnapped last Friday from her grandparents’ Maida, Corentyne, Berbice home. The matter was reported to the Whim and New Amsterdam Police Station.
While police were investigating, the child’s grandparents received information that she was being kept at a home in the Tuschen New Scheme, East Bank Essequibo, at the home of a couple.
A source close to the family revealed to this newspaper that members of the Tuschen Policing Group were on patrol in the area Tuesday evening when relatives of the girl approached them and inquired if they were in the village of Tuschen. They explained the situation to members of the policing group and indicated that that they were aware the child was being kept by a woman who sold groceries, shrimp and fish.
Acting on this information, the police visited the home of the individual, who was escorted to the Leonora Police Station for questioning. The woman was subsequently released.
The child, however, turned up at the Leonora Police Station yesterday in the company of a male and female and was asked to give a statement before her relatives were notified.
It was alleged that the officer who prepared the statement is known to the “kidnapper” and threatened the child to lock her up or take her to Bartica and kill her if she refused to sign the document.
After signing the statement, the source said the girl was informed that she had admitted to “running away with a boy.”
The child, however, has told her relatives that she was kidnapped and taken to Bush Lot, West Coast Berbice then to the Tuschen home. There, she said, she was locked away in a room and constantly raped and beaten.
The young girl related her fear for her life and her family is hoping for an intervention from senior officials since they do not trust the judgment of police officers at the Whim and Leonora police stations.
