MWALE

By VENARCIOUS MWANSA-
SUNDAY Times of Zambia Chief Reporter Sylvester Mwale was assaulted and held captive on the eve of independence celebrations in the notorious Chibolya Township in Lusaka.
Mr Mwale was detained for about an hour by thugs who tore up his trousers and shirt, as they roughed him up and got K200 from him.
He had gone to Chibolya undercover to establish the extent of sanity or lack thereof, after the past joint operations by the police and the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC).
“I didn’t want everyone to know that I was a journalist, so even though I had a camera, I hid it in a black plastic because I knew that it would agitate and alert them if they saw it,” he said.
“I passed near some unfinished structure on the famous Gaza Street where a group of thugs with red eyes stopped me and asked me what I was going,” he said.
Mr Mwale said the thugs increased in numbers around him and accused him of being an officer from DEC who was taking pictures of them.
They later demanded that he pay them K50 and give them the camera so that they check if he had taken pictures of them.
“But I was not sure that I will get back the camera if I gave them to check so I refused. I pulled out a K50 from my wallet but they later demanded more after seeing my wallet,” he said.
“One of them went straight to my pocket trying to get my wallet but he only managed to tear my trousers while another grabbed the collar of my shirt and tore that as well, before I ran into someone’s makeshift store.”
Mr Mwale later informed the office, who immediately notified the police to rescue him.
“But they took long. By that time, I was really under siege and I had already given them K160, because some thugs were now threatening the owner of the ka nthemba for offering me refuge.
Mr Mwale narrated that he was later whisked away by a man who claimed to be a former police officer, although the rescuer also demanded a K50 for his efforts.
“My observation is very simple: Nothing has changed in Chibolya, and those raids by police were just an academic exercise because Chibolya is still not safe today,” he said.
He said the police officers arrived after he had already been released but proceeded to the place he had been attacked, where the thugs scampered upon seeing the police.