Information filtering from sources close to the family of Late General Abubakar Rabe, who died in the captivity of bandits in Katsina forest, indicated that shortly after the death of former Director of Defence Information, the bandits who held them hostage became extremely jittery and agitated.
According to one of the sources, following the death General Rabe, the bandits quickly gathered their motorcycles together and commenced emergency preparations to flee the particular forest where they had kept their victims.
Accordingly, the bandits hurriedly mounted Mrs Amina Rabe on one of the motorcycles and fled the location where they had been holding her and her husband in a convoy.
It was further gathered that the bandits were more interested in the wife of the late General than the other victims they left behind as they did not make any effort to evacuate their other captives.
Mrs Rabe was quoted by a source as having said; “While the bandits were speeding through the bush on their motorcycles with a view to evading confrontation with troops, they began to hear sounds of gunfire from a distance.
“The development disoriented the fleeing bandits and they all went in different directions instead of riding together. It was at that point that the particular bandit who carried her on his motorcycle soon became frustrated, stopped midway and forced her to alight from the motorcycle and shot her in the thigh before fleeing the scene, leaving her to bleed profusely and in severe pain,” it said.
The source further said; “There was no way Mrs Amina Rabe could stand or walk because of the bullet wound and it was in that state that someone approached her from a nearby hamlet.
“According to the wife of the late General, the man asked her what had happened and she narrated her ordeal to him even as she was in a state of fear, panting and sweating profusely.
“The man then asked her, ‘are you the wife of General Rabe? and she answered in the affirmative.
“Mrs Rabe also told us that while the man was trying to assist her, they both heard the sound of gunfire, apparently from approaching military operatives who were combing the area in search of her.
“So, the man fled for his life and within some few minutes, the soldiers arrived the scene and found Mrs Amina Rabe lying in a pool of her blood,” the source stated.
It was also gathered that the scene quickly turned celebratory when the soldiers discovered that Mrs Amina Rabe was the wife of General Rabe as she identified herself to the soldiers.
Mrs Amina Rabe also told the soldiers that the man that came from the hamlet was the person that first discovered her but had to run for his life when he heard the sound of guns, but later returned to the scene.
“We were told that the soldiers only had their rifles, so they asked the man to bring a plank, which they used to convey Mrs Rabe to their vehicle and thereafter to a hospital in a neighbouring town, where she was administered first aid before she was eventually moved to the Federal Medical Centre in Katsina,” the source explained.
Information pieced together indicated that the gunshot wound suffered by Mrs Amina Rabe was not life-threatening, as the bullet did not pierce into her bone.
According to a source; “The bullet pierced the flesh of the upper leg between the hip and knee, but luck was on her side as it could have been fatal as a result of he bleeding from the gun shot”.
