ABDUCTOR’S MISTAKE

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3518, 3 July 1920, Page 3

ABDUCTOR’S MISTAKE

BOMBAY, April 20,

An officer here on leave from the frontier informs me that the woman abducted by the Afridis at Peshawar is a Eurasian, the wife of a captain in the Labour Corps in the Kbyber Pass. The Afridis entered the officer s dwelling at midnight under the impression that they had broken into the house of a certain colonel, whose wife would be an important hostage. The woman’s 19-year-old son sought to save his mother, but was knocked on the head for his pains. A giownup daughter hid in the cupboard, and so escaped. The raiders also seized a child, but she fainted and was left by the roadside. The kidnapped woman was a wholeday and a half, in captivity, and ail that time she received neither food nor drink. The raiders stole all her rings, and tried to make her sign papers for ransom, but she refused. Thev then discovered that she was not the woman they sought, and released her. The British forces had sent out, aeroplanes and cavalry to search for her. An aeroplane "spotted” her wandering about, evidently lost, and sent olil help to pick her up. When discovered she was clad in the torn remnants of a nightdress, the only garment s ho was wearing at the timt of her abduction. She is still in hospital terrilhy bruised, with a dagger wound in her shoulders. Only one raider has been captured.