by CYRUS OMBATI
Chief Crime Reporter
Monday September 19, 2022
Lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi
Two Indian nationals and their Kenyan driver have been missing for the past two months after their apparent abduction on Mombasa Road, Nairobi.
Mohamed Zaid Sami Kidwai, Zulfiqar Ahmed Khan and their driver Nicodemus Mwania are said to have been abducted near Ole Sereni area in mid July and driven away in an unmarked car.
Their car was blocked and armed men picked them before vanishing. Their car was found at the scene.
The families of the victims say they believe state agents were behind the incident. Police deny the claims.
Lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi says the three were abducted because they supported President William Ruto.
He moved to court through the family and justice Hedwig Ong’udi on July 28 ordered that the three missing persons be produced in court.
The judge then ordered that the case be mentioned on August 4. But the missing persons were not produced as ordered.
Ahmednasir has been blaming the police for the missing persons without producing evidence.
An inquiry was opened at the Langata police station by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations after the families of the missing persons reported the matter there.
And on September 15, the Internal Affairs Unit of the National Police Service was ordered to take over the probe into the issue.
IAU was told to take over the probe and report back after 21 days on the progress so far made.
This follows pressure from the family and some state officials for the matter to be investigated and those behind it be punished, if any.
The DCI was ordered to hand over the probe file into the incident as the new team took charge.
Preliminary findings show the men may have been picked up and driven to Eldoret for unknown mission.
Their mobile phones were last picked up in Eldoret town two days after the incident.
The team investigating the matter hit the road and visited the surveillance cameras at police headquarters in efforts to get the details of the car that was said to have blocked that of the missing persons.
They also intend to check all cameras on the possible route that the said abductors used after picking up the victims from the scene of the attack.
The two Indians are said to have been part of a team that had come to Kenya to join an IT team for Ruto to run the election campaigns.
This will be a crucial case to be watched under the new regime, which has been protesting police harassment.
In Kenya, a person is presumed dead if they have been missing for seven years.
The incident should have been reported at a police station and logged in the station’s occurrence book.
Section 118A of the Evidence Act says: “Where it is proved that a person has not been heard of or seen for seven years by those who might be expected to have heard of him if he was alive, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that he is dead.”
The declaration is made by the High Court, despite the absence of direct proof of death; the declaration then prompts the registrar of persons to issue a death certificate to the family.
The issue is among dozens that are under probe by the police. Most of the missing persons had a criminal history.
Some of them have not been found weeks after they went missing.
Officials aware of the plans say there were talks to relook into all the cases under the new regime.
There is no national database for missing persons in Kenya. However, each police station keeps a register of those who have vanished in their jurisdiction.
Sometimes missing persons may never be found due to kidnappings, drowning or hit and run accidents, he says and points out that there are many unclaimed bodies in mortuaries.