Reports of a 14-year-old boy, said to have been kidnapped by unidentified men and tied into a fertiliser sack and later found abandoned by the roadside, at Ho Area 52, in the Volta Region, has turned out to be false.
The reports, which gained prominence on the internet last Friday indicated that the kidnappers left the boy to his fate in the sack after the leader of the kidnappers said that he preferred a girl.
According to the reports, which caused fear and alarm among residents of Ho Area 52, the boy stepped out of his home to urinate when a group of unidentified gangsters seized him.
However, the Ho Municipal Police Commander, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Alex Yeboah, revealed yesterday that the boy was never kidnapped.
According to him, the boy was sent on an errand by his father, but decided to go and play in the neighbourhood.
Afraid that his father would punish him on his return home, the boy hatched the fake kidnap plan with a 12-year-old playmate, ASP Yeboah explained.
The Police Commander said that when an ‘okada’ rider spotted the sack by the roadside, he alerted some residents and the boy was freed from the sack.
ASP Yeboah said the boy became very weak and was taken to the Ho Municipal Hospital where he was revived.
On Monday, while he was being interrogated by the police, the boy whose name was not disclosed, confessed that he was not kidnapped and that he concocted the story to avoid punishment from his father, ASP Yeboah told the Ghanaian Times.
FROM ALBERTO MARIO NORETTI, HO