Mob smashes police unit in Mangochi
Highly charged community members from Namwera in Traditional Authority (T/A) Jalasi in Mangochi last Friday vented their anger on police officers for allegedly shielding criminals that have been terrorising the area recently.
The community members, among other things, damaged Namwera Police Unit. They destroyed window panes, door frames; as well as removing iron sheets from houses.
Confirming the development, Mangochi Police Station spokesperson Rodrick Maida explained that the incident happened on Thursday, when unknown thugs broke into a shop at Namwera Trading Centre and stole assorted items whose value is yet to be quantified.
He said the owner of the shop suspected a habitual criminal and his friend to have been behind the robbery and on Friday morning members of the community arrested the two suspects and handed them over to Namwera Police Unit.
Said Maida: “But at around 6pm the same day [Friday], members of the community mobilised themselves and went to Namwera Police Unit demanding that the suspects be released because they feared that the police would release them or the suspects would be released by the court and come back to terrorise them again, so they wanted to punish them themselves.”
After sensing danger, Maida said police at Namwera transferred the two suspects to Mangochi Police Station for their safety, but this did not please the communities who started accusing the police of shielding the suspects.
In June this year, irate residents of Chilomoni Township in Blantyre destroyed Chilomoni Police Sub-station on suspicion that a resident had been murdered by newly recruited police officers in a pub brawl. n
