Tutume policing area: A crime haven
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Monday January 23, 2023 06:00
The village has been under siege as it registered about seven cases ranging from drowning, missing persons, murder and suicide in a period of two weeks.
Some people blame the government for failing villagers as they believe that Tutume police station is under-resourced which is an obstacle in tackling the escalating crime rate.
Furthermore Tutume police station policing area covers over five major villages including Maitengwe, Nkange, Senete, Sebina and others. Compounding the problem,the same villages listed under the Tutume station policing area are just a stone's throw from the Zimbabwean border which have opened doors to influx registration of illegal immigrants working in the area from the same nation.
Tutume first made news headlines this year when a five-year-old boy, Marcus Tshabang was reported missing on January 6 and the issue went viral. The police and stakeholders together with the community members discovered Tshabang’s flip flops along Tutume River on the first day of their search.
The missing boy’s body was discovered five days later floating in the river at Tjiripa cattle post by three boys. Prior to the discovery, all hell broke loose in the village as there were rumours circulating on social media that Tshabang was killed for ritual purposes. But the reports were proven false and misleading by a post mortem report which showed that the boy died from drowning. Just a day after Tshabang was laid to rest , the villagers were yet again traumatised when another child was reported missing.
The three-year-old was reported missing on Saturday morning and the young girl has not been found yet. The girl who has been missing for the last five days ,was reported to have left her parents' home with three of her siblings and two friends to look for wild berries. It was reported that five other children returned and reported that they did not know the whereabouts of the three-year-old girl.
Prior to the disappearance of the girl, there was a manhunt for an elderly man who went missing at Nshakazhogwe lands which is a few kilometres from Tutume village. The NO.15 District officer commanding Kabo Badirwang told Mmegi that they were investigating a possible murder case. He said the incident came about after the 73-year-old who was reported missing was found dead in his own pit latrine.
Badirwang indicated that before discovering the elderly person’s body, his phone was answered by a mysterious man suspected to be a Zimbabwean national. It was alleged that the Zimbabwean man later hanged up the phone and vanished without a trace. The police are still searching for the suspected Zimbabwean man to help them with the investigation.
Badirwang was concerned about the mysterious death of people in their policing area. He said that two weeks back another man was killed in Senete village after getting his salary and thrown into the river.
He indicated that the unknown Zimbabwean man who is a suspect in the matter is still on the run. Badirwang was concerned about alarming cases of harbouring illegal immigrants, especially Zimbabweans, by villagers in their policing area. He said that most illegal immigrants are implicated in serious crime and often vanish after committing the same crimes.
There are also unconfirmed reports of a woman in Magapatona who was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend on Wednesday. The reports further stated that the suspect who was on the run was later discovered dead. Other reports alleged that upon searching for the missing girl aged three, the police discovered a dead body of a Zimbabwean national suspected to have committed suicide.