Families agony as relatives disappear mysteriously

By KARANJA NJOROGE

NAKURU; KENYA: Several people have disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Nakuru this year after being abducted in the town and its environs.

Some victims are later found dead while the lucky few escape from their captors’ clutches after paying a ransom.

Families looking for their lost ones have been flocking police stations seeking help. The family of 27-year-old Moses Ndeda is among those grappling with the disappearance of a loved one.

Ndeda, a casual labourer at the Nakuru Wholesale Market, left his home at Machanga in Kivumbini on May 22 at around 2pm in a tuk tuk headed to town. On the way they picked a female passenger and on reaching town they were stopped by two plaincloth officers. The rest were ordered to move on while Moses was handcuffed. Since that time the father of three has never been seen again.

According to Mr David Kuria of the Nakuru Human Rights Network (Nahurinet) who has been assisting the family trace Ndeda the officers were using a vehicle with private registration number plate. The tuk tuk driver later informed Ndeda’s family that he had been arrested and they reported the matter with the wife Emily Achieng’ at the Central Police Station.

The family, which has searched for Ndeda in various mortuaries in vain, has since filed a case in court seeking to have police compelled to produce him.

The spiralling crime wave has put the security officers on the spot due to the increasing rate at which they are being implicated in some of the incidents.  In March, Mwariki OCS Hillary Kagwamba Ndung’u was arraigned before a Nakuru Court charged with stealing and unlawful confinement. Ndung’u was accused of stealing Sh285,000 from Ms Pamela Bundi at Pipeline on March 20. He was further charged with wrongful confinement of Bundi and Mr Henry Ndubi Masita.

The misuse of firearms and indiscipline played out again last week after armed plainclothes officer shot and injured a PSV driver, Peter Njoroge, 49.

“The officer who appeared to be drunk charged at me before he pulled a pistol and aimed at me,” the matatu driver said from his hospital bed.

In another incident mystery surrounds the whereabouts of the 21-year-old daughter of a Nakuru businessman. She left her father’s business premises in the town four months ago.

Mr Mahesh Kumar who operates a clothes shop in Nakuru town says he has been searching for his daughter Cynthia Sharon since April 7. Kumar says he has made numerous trips to the Nakuru Criminal Investigations Department seeking their assistance to trace his daughter. According to the father Cynthia left the family’s other shop located along Kenyatta Avenue on April 7 around noon and has never been seen since then. The trader says a letter was later delivered claiming that she left home after being mistreated.

“Immediately after I learnt of her disappearance I alerted CID who assured that they would trace her but nothing has been forthcoming,” the trader says.