City gangs: How robber on Police watch list was shot dead

Police has shot dead one thug who was on their watch list and arrested another after being found trying to rape a lady they had earlier robbed from.

The incident happened at around 11pm on Tuesday night when police officers moving on a police patrol vehicle found Anita Namayanja, 23 a resident of Mutundwe in Lubaga division being strangled by a gang of criminals.

“The gang had already robbed her of valuables and was now trying to strangle her. Our officers put one of them (robbers) out of action who was trying to take off whereas his colleague was arrested,” Deputy Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson, Luke Owoyesigyire told the Nile Post.

The police mouthpiece identified the deceased as Tony Kigozi who was on the crime intelligence watch list whereas the other suspect in their custody has been identified as Henry Mutumba and that the two were traveling on a motorcycle registration number UEY 069W.

How it happened

According to sources at Mutundwe police post, Namayanja, a student at the Makerere University Business School(MUBS)  boarded a boda boda from Nalukolongo and while she was about to reach her home, another motorcycle carrying two people that had followed them, all of a sudden bypassed them at a terrific speed before asking them to stop.

According to the narration of the MUBS student, because she had almost reached her home, she asked the boda boda rider to drop her so she could walk home.

“The other boda boda returned and one guy jumped off and grabbed me by the neck. In the resultant scuffle, he was joined by his colleague who was riding. He came with a panga and before I could understand what was happening, I was slapped,” the MUBS student told police detectives.

The thugs then ordered Namayanja who had started making an alarm to keep quiet before one of them grabbed her bag whereas the second one pulled her knickers down.

“In the resultant scuffle, I managed to bite the left arm of one of the attackers. As he insisted on pulling down my knickers, I heard a gunshot and blood was flowing all over my body.”

She noted that by this time, the second suspect had been arrested by police officers who had surrounded the scene.

The deceased suspect’s body was taken to Mulago for postmortem whereas three new phones suspected to have been robbed were recovered from the suspects.

The motorcycle was also impounded by police.

The incident comes barely a day after President Museveni directed the Deputy Inspector General of Police to work out a strategic plan to rid Kampala Metropolitan areas of the criminal gangs that have become rampant in terorising residents.

“I have given two days to the commander Sabiiti of the police to come out with a plan to combat these gangs,”Museveni said in the statement on Tuesday afternoon.

He said the gangs are not so sophisticated, making it easy for security to wipe them out.

“These are gangs we shall easily defeat. That is what we did with the Kiddawalime gang in Masaka, the gang of Bukomero, the gang of Entebbe etc. It is easy to defeat these gangs. Their crimes will only add to the credit of the NRM because we are going to defeat them. Yet, the people have already seen the bankruptcy and the criminality of these groups and those who back them.”

Police and other security chiefs are currently engaged in a crisis meeting following the Commander in Chief’s directive.