Opinion / Letters
'Spike happy' cops must compensate accident victims
07 Apr 2014 at 16:03hrs | Views
It is quite sad that the government or to be precise, Home Affairs minister, Kembo Mohadi, has not said anything about paying bills for victims of the accident that occurred when police threw spikes in front of a moving vehicle on March 12 in Bulawayo.
In your Saturday April 5 2014 issue, you carried an article which said victims who had been admitted at Mpilo Hospital had requested to be discharged for fear of escalating bills?
Why do people have to go through such hardship when the accident was clearly caused by the police?
What happened to people or organisation being held responsible for their actions?
I hope as the story indicates, a human rights lawyer would take up the matter and sue the government for what happened to these innocent passengers.
Surely the police could have resorted to other means of punishing the driver if he was found to be on the wrong side of the law.
They could have simply taken the registration numbers of the kombi and tracked him if he ran away.
Throwing spikes could have resulted in the worst case scenario and we thank God that no one lost their lives, but the truth of the matter is that some passengers sustained serious injuries which might affect them in the long run.
Apart from that they were inconvenienced by this police-made accident, as is the case of the National University of Science and Technonology (Nust) student who has missed out on class while admitted at the hospital.
The least therefore that the government can do is to pay the bills of these victims as this accident was as a result of "spike happy" police officers.
Noel Sibanda, Bulawayo
In your Saturday April 5 2014 issue, you carried an article which said victims who had been admitted at Mpilo Hospital had requested to be discharged for fear of escalating bills?
Why do people have to go through such hardship when the accident was clearly caused by the police?
What happened to people or organisation being held responsible for their actions?
I hope as the story indicates, a human rights lawyer would take up the matter and sue the government for what happened to these innocent passengers.
Surely the police could have resorted to other means of punishing the driver if he was found to be on the wrong side of the law.
They could have simply taken the registration numbers of the kombi and tracked him if he ran away.
Throwing spikes could have resulted in the worst case scenario and we thank God that no one lost their lives, but the truth of the matter is that some passengers sustained serious injuries which might affect them in the long run.
Apart from that they were inconvenienced by this police-made accident, as is the case of the National University of Science and Technonology (Nust) student who has missed out on class while admitted at the hospital.
The least therefore that the government can do is to pay the bills of these victims as this accident was as a result of "spike happy" police officers.
Noel Sibanda, Bulawayo
Source - Noel Sibanda
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