Police mum on the arrest of four police officers for malicious damage

By Our Reporter

Police authorities are mum on the arrest of four police officers arrested for alleged malicious damage.

According to a Crime Situation Report filed at Mzimba Police Station dated March 17, which Capital FM had seen, the four officers committed the offense on Monday against Davie John and an Egyptian National.

The report has identified the four law enforcers as 36-year-old Golden Mughogho, 31-year-old Caleb Phiri, 27-year-old Josephy Chirwa, and 22-year-old Blessings Mzumara, all from Nkhatabay Police Station.

“Brief facts of the case are that the reporter and his driver were coming from Jenda. Upon arriving at Mzimba town, they came across four police officers who stopped them. They were asked what they carried in their 1.5 toner Mazda Titan Double Cabin registration Number NB 10613,” the report said.

It added; “They responded that they had cables and some gadgets. Then the situation turned sour as the police took the car keys and ordered the reporter and the driver out of the car. The officers started beating the reporter while the driver was begging them to stop to no avail. They scattered everything in the car by throwing away some of the gadgets and the cables.”

According to the report, members of the community gathered and intervened by stopping the officers from beating the reporter but it never worked until one of the police officers took a glass bottle and hit the reporter on the upper eye.

“Upon seeing this, the reporter took the bottle and hit one of the officers. When the other officers saw their colleagues bleeding, they started smashing the car by breaking the windscreen and both the rearview mirrors. Later, one of the people who gathered at the scene took the car keys from the police officer and gave it to the driver. That is when they found a chance to flee from the scene while bleeding and went straight to Mzimba Police Station to complain,” the report stated.

The report further stated that upon receipt of the complaint, all four were arrested and placed in a police cell pending court proceedings.

The value of the damaged items on the car according to the report is around MK2 million.

However, Capital FM’s efforts to confirm the incident proved futile, as law enforcers kept mum on the incident.

First, the spokesperson for Mzimba Police Station Maria Banda gave an excuse that she was not in office while the police regional spokesperson Maurice Chapola, despite giving assurance to respond to the issue stopped answering his phone and the national police spokesperson Peter Kalaya did the same.