Police in Limbe on Monday night shot one suspected robber dead and injured two of his accomplices after the police ambushed a gang of people that was attempting to break into a residential house at Chiswe area in Chigumula, Blantyre.
Limbe Police spokesperson Chifundo Kansunje confirmed about the incident in an interview yesterday, but said investigations to establish the names of the robbers and the whereabouts of the accomplice still at large were still going on.
She said police had information about the group’s intentions and way-laid it at the spot and caught them in the act.
“I can confirm that one person has been killed and two have been injured, one person of the two [injured] is admitted to Queens [Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital], but we do not know the location of the other injured robber as he was whisked away by the members of the group,” she said.
Kansunje said police way-laid the group, comprising about 10 robbers, following a tip-off they received that they were going to attack that particular house at Chiswe off Thyolo Road in Chigumula, in the outskirts of Blantyre City.
“The dead suspect was shot on the chest. The one at the hospital was shot in the leg, but we do not have the details about the person because he was taken away by his friends,” she said, adding that they have information that the injured suspect is somewhere in Thyolo.
Kansunje defended the shooting, saying the intention was to maim or disable the robbers, but one suspect—known only as Kasten—was shot on the chest and died.
She said police has been monitoring the activities of this group which has been robbing houses in Blantyre’s Bangwe Township, BCA Hill, Chigumula, Limbe Central and Mudi residential estate.
In recent years, Chigumula and several areas in Blantyre City as well as Lilongwe have been attacked by armed robbers.
The public has been accusing the police of being lenient to the robbers as, in some cases, the suspects were released on bail sooner than they were arrested. In certain cases, such as in Blantyre’s Ndirande Township and at the City Mall in Lilongwe, some irate citizens took the law into their hands and torched suspected robbers in protest.
