Residents demand action as expectant girl dies in police cell
By Harrison Kivisu, February 7, 2020Pressure is mounting on the government to unravel the cause of death of a 17-year-old expectant girl in Bamba Police Station cells in Ganze.
Resident and civil society groups yesterday paralysed business at the police station in the remote Ganze constituency village, as they protested over the death of the minor.
Police have claimed that Margaret Masha committed suicide, but her family insists she was defiled and suffocated to conceal evidence inside the cells.
While carrying placards and twigs, the angry villagers marched from Bamba market to the station demanding police based at the facility be suspended to allow independent probe on the girl’s death.
However, armed officers manning the gate thwarted their attempts to storm at the station.
Bamba boda boda riders chairman Amos Kahindi said all police officers at the facility should be held accountable for the death.
“If the girl was locked up and killed herself why did they remove her body without even informing the family.
By the time the family came to know, the body was already rushed at the mortuary,” said Kahindi.
Another resident, Hamisi Kenga, said there is a conspiracy to defeat justice.
Death in police station
“We are asking where were the police when the incident was happening, if someone can kill herself in a police station how about our security.
We cannot buy into this theory, this girl was raped and killed,” said Kenga.
Zawadi Kazungu, a sister of the deceased said the body of the girl, who had been arrested by police after failing to report for Form One, was found inside the cells with blood oozing from private parts.
She claimed that Masha, who was six-months pregnant sat for her Class Eight examination at Paziani Primary School had not reported for secondary school because she was pregnant.
Kazungu said that after examining her sister’s body they established that her clothes and under wear were soaked in blood.
“We highly suspect she was defiled prior to her death. She had been held in the cells for close to two weeks and after raping her, the perpetrator decided to murder her to conceal evidence,” she alleged.