KICHANGANI Street at Chanji area of Sumbawanga municipality, Rukwa region turned into a battle field when anti-riot police went to battle with mobs threatening to kill tenants of one of the houses along the street.
In the ensuing fracas, the anti-riot
squad was compelled to use tear-gas to scare off and disperse the irate
invaders, but they were a shade too late because the thugs had already
razed down a modern house within the precincts, accusing its occupants
of allegedly stealing ten boys and ‘secretly’ keeping them locked
indoors for over two weeks.
Armed with crude weapons – mainly pieces
of construction blocks – the mob smashed the windows and reduced to
rubble another structure of a facility under construction in front of
the targeted house.
The fracas lasted nearly five hours beginning around 3: 00 pm, leaving a trail of havoc along the street and its neighbourhoods.
Earlier, efforts by security organs who
had arrived at the scene proved futile as they faced defiant residents
who vowed to run down the entire house, and it was at that juncture that
the law enforcers lobbed tear-gas canisters into the air.
Several neighbours and eyewitnesses
alleged that the minors – all of them boys aged about ten years – were
alleged to have been “stolen and kept indoors” clandestinely, ostensibly
to undergo ‘Islamic’ teaching.
Rukwa Regional Police Commander George
Kyando (pictured below) confirmed during an exclusive interview with the
‘Daily News’ over the phone yesterday that about ten boys -- the oldest
being 15 years old and the youngest believed to be four years old --
were being kept ‘indoors secretly’ by people who identified themselves
as sheikhs.
According to the RPC, all the boys were
said to have been ‘recruited’ from Namansi Village along the shoreline
of Lake Tanganyika within Nkasi district of Sumbawanga region.
But the RPC declined further details on
the identity of the suspects for fear of tampering with the ongoing
investigations, only confirming that five people, among them two women,
had since been arrested and were still being “grilled” by police
officers.
According to impeccable sources, three
of the suspects are believed to be male sheikhs, helped by two women
serving as cooks – all from Mwanza region.
The whistle blower also identifies one
Sheikh Khalifa Shaban as the ‘ring-leader’ and the man who rented the
house is believed to have come from Kigoma region while ‘another sheikh’
was believed to have come from Zanzibar, all of whom were joined by a
local leader from the village of Namansi in Nkasi district.
The RPC says the suspects will face
several charges, including one of ‘obstructing’ the minors from
attending formal school and keeping them indoors without the consent of
their parents or guardians.
“… I’m now on my way to the village
(Namansi) to interrogate the children’s parents … we’re also
investigating if there are girls being kept ‘secretly’ in a separate
house … we need to find out that one … yet,” the RPC added.
A local leader at Kichangani Street, Ms
Anne Mwanakulya, said the events started unfolding when three children
from the house went to a nearby hotel to break their fast, and while
there, the hotelier – one Mama Salome -- recognized one of the kids.
“Mama Salome recognized one of them as
‘the child of her younger sister’ who had been reported missing several
days before … she identified him as Bahati, aged four … Mama Salome says
his father was the one who brought the boy to ‘the house’ from Namansi
Village but his mother did not know his whereabouts,” Ms Mwanakulya
narrated..
The street chairman, Mr Philip
Mwanandenje, says Mama Solome then alerted him over the matter, and he,
in turn, reported the matter to the “relevant organs for further
determinations.”
A cross-section of residents still
remains bent on “destroying the house” to serve as a lesson for “others
still itching to commit similar offences.”
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