Mozambique: Kidnapping of Quelimane businessman is third in country in six days – Lusa report

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Mozambique: Kidnapping of Quelimane businessman is third in country in six days – Lusa report

1:22 CAT | 16 Apr 2021

Picture: Lusa

A businessman with interests in the entertainment sector was on Thursday night kidnapped by five armed men in the city of Quelimane, in Zambezia province, in central Mozambique, a provincial spokesman for the police told Lusa.

The spokesman, Sidner Lonzo, said that the businessman, Michael Umeshkumar Chandular, had been forcibly taken from a restaurant where he was sitting with friends at 7.05 p.m.

“Immediately after the abduction, we had the information, we started a vehicle search in the city and patrols at the only road entry and exit point and we also activated the river police, to keep an eye on the boats leaving the city,” he said.

This was, he added, the first kidnapping “that there is a memory of in the history of the city,” which he said “is not very attractive for violent crime” because of its relatively small size and the fact that it has only one point of entry and exit by road.

Chandular is well known in the city as a show promoter and also owns a “bottle store”, as shops selling alcoholic drinks are known in Mozambique.

His is the third kidnapping reported in less than a week in Mozambique. Last Sunday an Indian businessman was kidnapped on an avenue in Maputo and on Tuesday a woman, a 49-year-old Portuguese national, was taken outside Portugal’s consulate-general in Maputo.

Last year, the authorities recorded over 10 kidnappings, the victims of which were all businessmen or relatives of businessmen.

Source: Lusa