Chicken thief forced to eat his raw loot

POLICE yesterday rescued a chicken thief from Epworth who was being forced to eat raw chickens he had stolen from a Chinamhora family. Never Zhimu had gone on a chicken-stealing expedition but was foiled by vigilant cops who nabbed him at a roadblock in Borrowdale, along Domboshava Road.
Zhimu had stolen eight chickens from a Chinamhora villager Paul Chingondo who stays in Kadyausayi Kraal under Headman Elias Ngoroma (who himself fell victim to the same thief last week). "I was a victim to this menace and I want him prosecuted. "He has been terrorising my kraal to such an extent that my subjects are keeping their chickens and goats inside their bedrooms," complained the headman.
Villagers grabbed Zhimu and forced him to eat the raw chickens. "Idya dziri mbishi (eat them raw)," shouted the furious villagers forcing the police to intervene and restore order. Zhimu confessed to have been terrorising Chinamhora villagers for the past three months. "I have been operating in this area for the past three months and I have never been caught.
"I use juju and it seems the police officer who caught me was using more powerful juju than mine," said the shocked Never Zhimu who has NEVER been caught in his three years of thieving around the country. Zhimu said he went to his target village at around 7pm on Monday night and hid at a nearby cemetery.
"I went and hid at the cemetery operating as per instruction from my Mozambican-based sangoma. "I then went to that house after my instinct told me that there were chickens in the hut. I then burnt my juju and blew the smoke into the main house and I knew that my victims would never wake up for at least three hours.
"I then decided to lock them in the main house," narrated Zhimu. Armed with a hoe and large stones in case of any disruptions, Zhimu then forced open the door to the hut and strangled the eight chickens.
He said that although the chickens made clucking noises, the people at the homestead were as "good as dead" in their sleep. All was according to script but tables turned for Zhimu when he boarded a Harare-bound commuter omnibus at around 4am yesterday.
Borrowdale policemen were patrolling along Domboshava road and when they stopped the commuter omnibus, Zhimu's movements raised the cops' suspicions. He is said to have forced his way out of the bus and ran into the dark forcing the cops to fire a warning shot in the air.
"When the cops asked him to open his bag, he became shaky and went on to push the conductor in his haste to get out of the bus. "A police officer and the conductor pursued him and a cop called Sergeant Makufa fired a shot in the air and he fell down as he was climbing up the Borrowdale School fence.
"That is when he led the police to this village," narrated one villager who was aboard the commuter omnibus. When reporters arrived in Chinhamora, villagers said that they had lost a combined total of more than thirty birds in one week! And Zhimu conceded that he was responsible.
When asked on where he sold his loot, Zhimu told reporters that he had a ready market. He sells the strangled birds to food vendors and illegal chicken dealers in the city centre and in his neighbourhood of Epworth.
"My biggest customer is Mai Joe from Epworth; she owns a 'butchery' where she sells chicken cutlets.
"I also sell to food vendors who sell sadza in town," said Zhimu. This confession explained why some of these food vendors are so generous when it comes to the large portions of chicken that they serve.
Reporters also established that these 'butcheries' have increased in the high density areas where they have in fact been coined 'Kotamai Butchery'. Zhimu was taken to Borrowdale Police Station where a docket was expected to be opened before being transferred to Chinamhora police which had the jurisdiction by virtue of the crime having been committed in their area.