Three more suspects have been arrested in connection with the abduction of three female students of Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary (BMJS), Ikorodu, Lagos State. They were arrested at the weekend in a hotel where they were hiding.

The suspects confessed to the police that they were in charge of cooking, feeding and ensuring that the girls did not escape. The police had earlier arrested three persons, Emmanuel Arigidi, James Henry and Akanji Oluwasegun, bringing the number of suspects in police custody to six.

But four of the suspects were said to be confirmed members of the kidnap gang. The schoolgirls, Timilehin Olosa, Tofunmi Popoolaniyan and Deborah Akinayo, were kidnapped by gunmen while they were reading in one of their classrooms at night.

A police source said: “Three more suspects were arrested at the weekend in their different hotel rooms. We tracked them through the network providers. They confessed that their roles were to cook and feed the abducted girls.

They were also to ensure that the girls did not escape. They told us that they fed the girls with noodles. The suspects also informed us that they had attempted to kidnap students twice from the school, but did not succeed until the third attempt.”

Arigidi, the prime suspect, had earlier revealed that the kidnappers were members of a 12-man gang. When contacted on the phone yesterday, the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Dolapo Badmus, said she was in a meeting.