BULAWAYO – Two women were savagely beaten, they claim by police officers, after being accused of breaching coronavirus lockdown rules in Bulawayo’s Cowdray Park suburb.
The two sisters were leaving Pick n Pay supermarket in the suburb on April 16 after buying meat when they say a police officer attacked them with a truncheon.
After walking a short distance, Nokuthula Mpofu, 37, said she returned to the police position upon realising that her phone, which was in her pocket, had been damaged during the assault.
“I wanted to complain to the officer’s colleagues that he had damaged my phone. They told me it’s not okay and advised me to go and talk to him,” Mpofu said told journalist, Zenzele Ndebele, in a video interview posted on YouTube.
“When I went over to the offending police officer and explained that he had damaged my phone, he told me to go and fix it. He said I shouldn’t be complaining about a US$70 phone, he normally damages iPhones.”
Mpofu said she left the officer and returned to her sister, Ntombizodwa, 30, but the officers – who were six – followed them. Two of the police officers later handcuffed them from behind, beginning a sustained assault as they were marched to a police post in the suburb.
While making tribal slurs against Ndebele people, Mpofu said the officers assaulted them outside and inside the police post.
The two women were detained overnight and in the morning, they were ordered to pay admission of guilt fines for “conduct likely to provoke breach of peace.”
Pictures of their injuries from the assault which circulated on Twitter this week sparked public outrage. A campaign was launched to identify the arresting officer, who signed off the women’s release papers as “Zariro”.
National police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said the matter had come to their attention, and they were investigating.
“I’m still gathering the facts and will issue a statement very soon,” Nyathi told ZimLive by phone.
The sisters said they had filed a police report and had been examined by a doctor.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project, a rights group, said in a report released on May 6 that 96 percent of human rights violations it recorded in April were perpetrated by the police, municipal police and the army.
“Of the total number of violations recorded, harassment and intimidation topped the list with 130 incidents while 86 cases of assault were recorded,” the ZPP said.
