The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) is in hot pursuit of a police officer who allegedly raped a 21-year-old girl in Teso South on May 31st.
Teso South sub-county police Commander Isaac Kimwele, while speaking to KNA on the phone on Monday, confirmed that IPOA had picked samples from the girl for medical examination.
“As we talk, the case is now with IPOA. The girl has been taken for a medical examination, which is a very key step in the investigation, and we are waiting for the outcome. We have officers who are supposed to be taken for medical examination so that their samples can be compared with the deposits that were found in the lady,” Kimwele said.
“If it happens that it is him (the police officer) who are culpable, then they will have to carry their own cross.”
The sentiment of the sub-county police boss comes two days after Teso South MP Mary Emase called for action to be taken against the officer said to be responsible for the rape claim.
Emase, who visited the victim at their Amaase village home, said it was unfortunate that police officers who are expected to secure the lives of Kenyans and their property are the same officers carrying out acts punishable by law.
“I requested for an Administration Police camp to be established at Aterait because of insecurity, and I constructed the AP camp using NG-CDF money, and they posted the officers. There work was purely to provide security to area residents and their property,” Emase said.
“But what is shocking is that the same officers expected to provide security are the ones defiling our girls.”
The girl, according to the MP, is said to have been told by the officer, who was in the company of a colleague, that she had been arrested, although the officers did not specify the offense the girl had committed.
The officers are alleged to have visited the girl’s home in search of Changaa, which was not found.
“At the road, there was no Landcruiser, as she had been told of. They ordered her to walk with them up to Ong’aroi. ” The girl was ordered to stop when they reached a bushy area, and the officer instructed her to undress,” the second time MP said.
“When the girl declined, she was slapped by the officer before being wrestled to the ground and raped.”
The girl said that after the sexual act, the officer ordered her to put on her panty and leave.
Emase said there is another report on rape implicating the same officer who is alleged to have had sex with another girl at Aterait without the lady’s consent.
“I have another account that implicates the same officer in another incident at Aterait where the same officer defiled a girl. The incident almost made the girl commit suicide, but that case was killed,” the MP said.
“There is another case at Kemodo where some officers went to arrest people who were taking changaa, and one woman was raped during the raid. And it is said to be the same officer. I want to talk directly to our Interior Cabinet Secretary, Kithure Kindiki; crack the whip and reign on Adungosi and Aterait police stations.”
Kimwele called for calm as IPOA concluded investigations into the rape claims.
Only a thorough and conclusive investigation will unearth the truth about the rape allegations, he said.
The girl’s neighbours claimed the officers who visited the victim’s home donned jungle clothes on the day of the girl’s arrest and subsequent rape.
Kimwele, however, said there were many members of the public who put on jungle clothes resembling police uniforms and that it was difficult to conclude now that the people who raped the girl were officers.
By Absalom Namwalo
