Young girl rescued from attempted abduction

Police are searching for a man captured on security footage attempting to abduct an 11-year-old girl in the city’s Sta. Ana district last Thursday morning.

Reports said that the incident occurred shortly after 11 a.m. in Barangay 905, Punta. Surveillance video shows a man in a white shirt standing on a sidewalk as the victim walked past him.

According to a village official, the girl had been sent by her family to buy food at a nearby eatery when the man began following her.

“He whispered to her,” said Barangay Kagawad Edwin Zambrona. “He claimed her mother had sent something for her and promised her money and food.”

Additional footage shows the victim walking alongside the man as he pushed a bicycle. Upon reaching Barangay 899, the man reportedly convinced the girl to get on the bike. Zambrona suggested the child appeared to be in a trance-like state during the encounter.

The girl was rescued after a friend of her father, who was riding a jeepney, spotted the child on the back of the suspect’s bicycle. The witness told the girl’s father that the man was behaving suspiciously and smelling the child’s hair, prompting him to jump off the jeepney and confront the pair.