By Draxon Maloya
(Lilongwe-Malawi) Police in the northern region have sent a strong warning to community members who took part in violent activities that led to the closure of Usisya Police Unit that soon the law enforcers will effect arrests of those who took part in destroying property some three months ago.
The warning comes in the wake of a period of increased criminality and lawlessness at Usisya following the closure of the police unit and staff houses which were vandalized by a group of some disgruntled youths in the area.
The Northern Region Police Commissioner, Richard Luhanga sent the warning on Tuesday when he commissioned the reopening of Usisya Police Unit which was vandalized following misunderstandings with some police officers.
He said it is very sad that innocent people were being victimized by criminals during the three months Usisya have been with no police services following the fracas.
The incidents also led to the rooting and demolition of the offices and houses for the law enforcers.
“The police services were interrupted due to some violent conduct on the part of the community members and that has been Nkhatabay police officer in charge and my concern, so we made every possible way to ensure all our services return to this area because the impact was criminality and lawlessness,” Luhanga said.
Before the police commissioner’s interface with community members, officers from the Community Policing Department trained a newly formed oversight committee which has been mandated to ensure that the police is effectively performing to its expected standards.
On his part Group Village Headman (GVH) Mulwa thanked the police for quickly redeploying officers to Usisya considering that some cross boarder criminals took advantage of the situation to terrorize innocent civilians.
Reverend Father Edward Kapalamula of the Anglican Church who is Usisya Pastor’s Union and Gender Based Violence Protection Committee Chairperson described the situation at Usisya as horrible while calling on authorities to consider increasing the number of police officers in the area.
“The situation here at Usisya was just very bad and we have experienced a sharp increase in number of defilement and other GBV related cases for the past three months,” the Priest said.
In the absence of police formations in the past three months Usisya has registered more than 20 defilement cases and according to the latest statistics released by the Northern Region Police Headquarters the area has a population of 27, 940 against only nine police officers manning security in the area.
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