Police intensify crackdown on Tsholotsho villagers

Bulawayo Agenda says it has received reports that police in Tsholotsho have started a blitz to muzzle villagers by forcing them to signing affidavits denying ever 'seeing or hearing' of any brutality reported in the Southern Eye last week

The paper reported last week that following a break-ins into Mvundlana Primary School and Thabani Store owned by Matabeleland North Provincial Affairs minister Cain Mathema a fortnight ago, police went on a rampage of beating up villagers leaving at least four seriously injured and many terrified.

"In what might be a clandestine move to cover up the incidents of last week, scores of villagers have allegedly been forced to sign affidavits at the Tsholotsho police camp under the watchful eye of officers working under Officer in Charge known as Muza," Bulawayo Agenda said in a statement.

"The affidavits are likely to be used as cover-up internally, within the police force (if there are disciplinary procedures) and also raises fears of persecution, possibly through prosecution of Nqobani Ndlovu, the journalist and Mpofu, the Bulawayo Agenda chapter chairperson who was quoted in the media.

"After the story was published in the Southern Eye, Police Officers from Lupane district, working from Southampton Building in Bulawayo requested that the Tsholotsho Agenda (Bulawayo Agenda Chapter) chairperson, Herbert Mpofu, who was quoted in the Southern Eye story on the 20th of February, see a Nhliziyo to clarify what had happened in Tsholotsho."

Meanwhile, the organisation said, police in Lupane on the 21 of February briefly detained and questioned Casuel Moyo, a former Bulawayo Agenda staff member who is currently the organization's focal person in Lupane.

"The arrest that appeared to be an act of intimidation came a few days after Bulawayo Agenda structures (internal) meeting in Lupane was disrupted by the police."