Flashback 1917: Ipoh Sikh couple attempts extraordinary kidnapping, buries girl in tunnel. What happens next?

This 1917 court case jumps up to attention for it sheer intriguing details. A Sikh couple attempts to kidnap their niece who lives nearby in order to help themselves to the jewellery in her possession.

After drugging her, they hid her in a tunnel dug in their house. It seems they had a plan, but it’s not not clear if the plan was simply to keep the girl hidden for a short while, or to kill her eventually.

The details were fleshed out at an Assize hearing presided by Justice Farrer-Manby. The evidence against the accused made up a narrative of some interest, reported Malaya Tribune in a report entitled ‘Extraordinary Kidnapping Affair. Smart Police Work’ its edition of 26 June 1917.

“It appears that the girl was living with her brother and her uncle in Silibin Road. On the morning of April 9 both of the latter had occasion to leave the house but when returned they found the girl missing. Her jewellery had also disappeared. A hue-and-cry ensued,” it reported.

Several of the neighbours, who had seen the girl in the morning in the company of her uncle and his wife, but had thought nothing of it at the time, informed her brother, who at once communicated with the police. Naturally, the couple were asked what they knew of the whereabouts of the girl but they stoutly denied all knowledge of her, the report added.

The newspaper report went on: “Inspector A Neave, who was put on to the case, set about trying to solve the riddle and he did so with commendable smartness. He arrested both accused on suspicion late that night and then raided the house. Under a charpoy, carefully covered over with boards and a layer of sand, the Police found a tunnel, several feet deep. In this tunnel the girl was found sleeping off the effects of a drug, whilst her jewellery lay on the ground close by.”

When carried up out of the tunnel and awakened the girl could remember nothing, except that her uncle had given her something to drink and she had fallen asleep.

Both accused denied that they had kidnapped the girl or seen her on the day in question, and protested that they could not understand how she came to be sleeping in a tunnel in their house.

But the judge did not buy their story. In the end, the judge convicted both accused, sentencing them to 15 months’ imprisonment each.

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