Of­fi­cers of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad and the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) are in­ves­ti­gat­ing an in­ci­dent where a ten-year-old girl re­port­ed­ly wit­nessed a male rel­a­tive be­ing kid­napped at her home in Arou­ca near mid­night on Sat­ur­day.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, a 23-year-old woman of Thomas Trace in Arou­ca told them that at about 11.59 pm on Au­gust 17 her ten-year-old niece of con­tact­ed her via What­sApp cry­ing.

The girl re­port­ed that five men came to their home and sur­round­ed the vic­tim in the yard where an al­ter­ca­tion oc­curred. She claimed the men took away the vic­tim in­to a blue and sil­ver ve­hi­cle.

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers said they have hit a dead-end in the case and de­scribed the re­port as “bizarre.”

Neigh­bours were cau­tious to com­ment when Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the area yes­ter­day. The of­fi­cers said they were al­so yet to de­ter­mine a mo­tive for the kid­nap­ping.

One neigh­bour, who asked not to be named, said she was un­aware of the kid­nap­ping.

She added that she knew the fam­i­ly for over 30 years and said that at any giv­en time there are about ten peo­ple at the res­i­dence in­clud­ing two small chil­dren.

An­oth­er neigh­bour said “I wasn’t around for a while I re­cent­ly moved back in and see­ing about my own self. I don’t mind any­body busi­ness I just keep to my­self but think­ing about it, I did not see any­one there or hear them in the last few days so maybe some­thing did hap­pen that night but I was sound asleep.”

Yes­ter­day, through the gate, which is blocked off with white lat­tice, there was ev­i­dence of smashed glass win­dow and a bro­ken bot­tle which sup­port­ed the po­lice re­port that there may have been a strug­gle.

In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers are ask­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic who may have any in­for­ma­tion that would as­sist them in their in­ves­ti­ga­tions to come for­ward and con­tact them at 999, 555, 800 TIPS or 482-GARY.