Police said Monday that militants kidnapped a 9-year-old girl on her
way to school and forced her to wear a suicide bomb vest. The girl and
police said she managed to escape her captors as they directed her to
attack a paramilitary checkpoint in northwest Pakistan.
Sohana
Jawed, who is in third grade, said she was abducted near her home in
the northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday and taken to Lower Dir
district, a four hours' drive away, where she was found Monday.
Police
in Lower Dir presented Jawed at a news conference, where she told her
story dressed in her blue and white school uniform. But police in
Peshawar said they haven't received a complaint of a missing girl and
haven't identified a resident with her name.
Initial police reports of security incidents in Pakistan are sometimes wrong.
Militants in the country have often used young boys to carry out attacks, but the use of young girls is rare.
Jawed
said during the news conference that she was grabbed by two women while
on her way to school and forced into a car carrying two men.
One
of the kidnappers put a handkerchief over her mouth that knocked her
unconscious, Jawed said in a separate interview with a local TV station.
When
she woke up and started crying, one of the women gave her cookies laced
with something that again knocked her out, Jawed said. The next time
she woke up she found herself in a strange home, she said.
"This morning, the women and men forced me to put on the heavy jacket and put me in the car again," said Jawed.
The
suicide vest contained nearly 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of explosives and
seemed to be designed to be set off remotely, Lower Dir police chief
Salim Marwat told The Associated Press.
"Most likely it had to be detonated through a remote control since a minor was wearing it," he said.
The
kidnappers brought her to a checkpoint run by the paramilitary Frontier
Corps located about 6 miles (10 kilometers) outside Timergarah, the
main town in Lower Dir district. When they got out of the car, she
sprinted toward the paramilitary soldiers to show them what she was
wearing, said Marwat.
"I got the chance to release my hand from the woman and run," said Jawed.
By
the time the paramilitary soldiers realized what was happening, the
kidnappers had escaped, said Marwat. Police have launched a search
operation to find them, he said.
It's unclear why the kidnappers
didn't detonate the suicide bomb vest after Jawed ran away. Marwat
suggested they may have simply panicked and fled.
Asif Khan, the
police chief in the area of Peshawar where Jawed said she lived and was
kidnapped, Hashtnagri, said they haven't received a complaint of a
missing girl and haven't identified a resident with her name.
Police
in Lower Dir plan to ask Jawed additional questions after she is
examined by a psychiatrist, who is helping her cope with the trauma of
her ordeal.
"Police will try to get more information from her once she gets normalized," said Marwat. AP
