Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-There was carnage and mayhem in the central town of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital CBD, on Friday which left one man with a broken leg and another old lady with a smashed head from a police baton stick.
The country’s Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), in conjunction with the Municipality police and Vehicle Inspection Department (VID) are carrying out an operation against commuter omnibuses in movie style stunts that have angered many.
Witnessed by News of the South, the events left many people angry and accusing the authorities of lacking common sense in their planning and execution of their duties.
A fleet of police vehicles blockaded adjacent ends of Chinhoyi Street as they cornered commuter omnibuses who then started racing all over pavements as they sought to flee the spike and baton wielding officers.
The ensuing cat and mouse game lasted over ten minutes with pedestrians running all over the streets as they sought to flee both the police, who were beating those nearby, and commuter buses which were racing forwards and backwards.
In the ensuing melee an old lady innocently sitted in a commuter bus had her head hit by a baton stick leaving her bloodied and dazed.
Both the ZRP, VID and municipal police tried to leave her injured until the gathered crowd carried her to them and demanded they carry her to hospital.
Another man was left with a broken leg as he fled from the police who had now turned upon the crowd demanding that they go away from the carnage that had numerous vehicles locked in a traffic jam of spiked commuter buses with smashed-in windows and other private vehicles looking for a way out.
Again the police tried to flee from the injured man until pedestrians blockaded them demanding they carry him too.
The ZRP was also grabbing and throwing into their vehicles anyone seen taking photos of the carnage.
Standby observers were adamant authorities were the chief creators of the carnage and confusion with their over-the-top style.
“Why can’t they arrest these commuter buses out there in the streets and highways where they are few people, instead of here where they are so many people”, one angry man queried.
Another man was adamant, telling NOTS the operation just like the ones against vendors, would fail for they were premised on no good alternatives for the supposed law-breakers.
“These issues requires wider solutions not just mere raids upon the commuter buses and this operation won’t work just as they have failed to remove vendors who are still there because they are not providing practical solutions”.
“Vendors were given silly alternatives to go and sell out there in the outskirts and they have tried the same with these commuter buses. How do they operate viably from out there where the new rank has been built? We need order yes, but the status quo is better than this mayhem which they are now causing”, he said.
Many other gathered people queried why they was no ambulance in the entourage of cars since previous other operations had shown the likelihood of people getting injured.
A poor economy in the Southern Africa country has created a host of challenges and problems which authorities have been trying to deal with using piecemeal solutions that have time and again failed.
A number of people have been killed and some injured during previous such operations yet authorities have remained obstinate in repeating the same failing and dangerous operations
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