KEY POINTS:
Two separate attempted abductions of Auckland schoolgirls are being investigated to see if they are linked.
Two incidents - one on the North Shore and the other in south Auckland - happened within 30 minutes of each other on Thursday and both involved girls being grabbed as they walked to school.
In the first a 14-year-old was walking to Clover Park Middle School in Otara when a man pulled up beside her and ordered her into his car.
When she ignored him he got out and grabbed her by the arm but she escaped and ran to school.
About 30 minutes a 11-year-old girl, was grabbed as she walked on Fordham St, Beachhaven, by a man who had stopped beside her in a white car.
He put his hand over her mouth but she managed to wriggle free and run away.
In both incidents the car was described as a small hatchback and the driver as a Pacific Islander.
Police are looking for a Maori or Polynesian man, possibly in his late teens, about 1.8m tall, who was wearing a white and black cap with thick white stripes, baggy jeans and a green and white basketball-type shirt.
The hatchback car had a dent in the driver's door and its registration possibly started with the letters XA.
- NZPA
