By MILDRED KATONGO  –
ACTING with speed, Ndola police yesterday picked up 12 men in connection with the case of two taxi drivers who have gone missing in unresolved circumstances in recent weeks.
A Congolese national, identified by Police as James Bonku, aged 21, is a key suspect after he was collectively identified by some of the suspects.
Families and friends of the missing pair, named as Peter Chainda and  Mike Ntokoshi, staged a protest at Chifubu police station earlier in the day to express their anger and frustration at the tardy pace of investigations into the matter.
Chainda, 40, went missing last week, three months after Ntokoshi had driven off from his base at Kansengu never to be seen again.

• Families and friends of the missing pair staged a protest at Chifubu Police Station yesterday.

In both cases, the missing drivers were said to have been hired by a client, or clients, who said they needed to get to Maria Chimona, a location on the northern outskirts of the city that offers a sort of back-route into the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Copperbelt police Commissioner Charity Katanga had some rather grim news for them, saying from interrogations of one of the suspects, latest missing person, Chainda was feared dead.
Yesterday’s rush of arrests followed a discovery by some friends of Chainda’s who found a car they identified as belonging to him at a garage in Chifubu where it was being taken apart and repainted.
A second car, said to belong to Ntokoshi, was also discovered at another location.
“We have arrested a Congolese national, James Bonku of no fixed abode following a report that he was found dismantling a car said to belong to Mr Chainda at one of the garages on Friday last week. The suspect was collectively identified,” Ms Katanga said in an interview yesterday.
A family representative Evelyn Sampi who is Mr Chainda’s sister-in-law said the family had been searching for their relative for more than a week.
Ms Sampi said the family received a report that Mr Chainda’s car had been found, raising mild hopes that the family would be reunited with their missing relative but to no avail.
She said the relatives wanted to know if Mr Chainda was dead or alive.
“We have come here at the police station because we want to see the body of our relative if he is dead. We have been searching for a week now. On the material day, he went to work and never came back. Let the police tell us about how far they have gone with their investigations so that we bury our relative if he is dead,” she said amid sobs.
Chimutengo Taxi Drivers Association vice chairperson Redson Longolongo said the drivers were concerned at the incidences and wanted to find what had happened to their colleagues.
Mr Longolongo said what was surprising was that the cars were being found, but missing drivers were nowhere to be found.
Mr Longolongo said the drivers were cooperating with the police to help find their friends and their suspected abductors.
“We had to come here because after we heard that our colleagues’ car has been discovered at a garage. We just want to find out what the police are doing with this case, because the drivers are operating in fear and the families of my missing colleagues are also in anguish, not knowing what news will come forth,” he said.