Xinhua General News Service
SYDNEY — A police strike force has been formed to conduct inquires after a Sydney schoolgirl was targeted in an elaborate bomb hoax, New South Wales Police said on Thursday.
Robbery and Serious Crime Squad Commander, Detective Superintendent Luke Moore, said police were treating the incident as an attempted extortion.
“We have established Strike Force Haddon to examine this incident and the motivation behind it,” Moore said.
“We are pursuing a number of lines of inquiry. However, it appears at this stage to be a case of attempted extortion,” he said.
Local police officers attended a residence in Burrawong Avenue at Mosman, on Sydney’s lower north shore on Wednesday afternoon, after receiving reports of an 18-year-old woman required urgent police assistance.
Arriving on the scene, police found the girl was in distress with a suspicious device fitted to her neck by a chain.
After an extremely delicate and tense operation lasting about 10 hours, the girl was freed from the device in the early morning on Thursday.
Police have been told an unknown balaclava-clad man confronted the victim in the kitchen and forced her to stay still while he fitted the device to her on Wednesday afternoon.
The girl’s father on Thursday told reporters in Sydney that his daughter was coping well from the horrifying ordeal though she was tired and sore.
“From our family’s perspective we are clearly extremely eager for our lives to return to normal,” he said.
“Our appeal to you is that you request our privacy after this and leave us to get on with our lives,” he added.
Copyright 2011 Xinhua News Agency