Mob storms police station, kills murder suspects

 Residents set ablaze Chemase Police Station in Nandi County after lynching murder suspects. [Edward Kosut, Standard]

Irate locals stormed a police station in Nandi, killed two murder suspects and torched a police vehicle before lowering and burning a national flag.

The irate mob stormed Cheswerta police station in Nandi County where they also burned an occurrence book and a computer.

The angry locals were looking for two murder suspects who had been arrested by the police.

Apart from the vehicle, the police station's cell was also destroyed and the two murder suspects killed by the mob during the chaos that erupted on Thursday evening.

Witnesses said the angry locals lowered and burnt the national and police flag after destroying the vehicle, the computer and vandalising the cells in search of the two suspects.

During scuffle, seven police officers were injured, according to Nandi County Police Commander Dickens Njogu.

The raid was triggered by the recovery of the body of man identified as Enock Kiplagat on Thursday, hours after his disappearance from Kibisem village. The body had the head toes and private parts dismembered.

The incident snowballed into chaos as the locals started pursuing suspects through performance of cultural rituals.

Police later arrested one of the suspects and took him to Cheswerta police station.

After killing one suspect, the locals went all the way to Kibigori along the Nandi-Kisumu border where they hunted down and killed a second man believed to be behind the suspected murder.

According to the Assistant Chief of Kibisem sub-location, Simeon Biwott, the deceased had reportedly gone to Namba Mbili market to celebrate the New Year in one of the entertainment joints along Muhuroni-Miwani Road when he went missing.

“We woke up the to sad news on January 1 that the lifeless body was found along the footpath in Kibisem. It is suspected that the deceased was killed elsewhere and his body dumped a few kilometers from his home,” he recounted.

David Busienei, a relative to the deceased claimed that the suspects confessed on what transpired and mentioned other three accomplices allegedly behind the death of Kiplagat.

“The police, guided by the confession of the suspect, recovered the head dumped into a well in the neighbourhood. It was wrapped in a cloth and it had bruises, which shows that the deceased was brutally tortured before his death,” he stated.

Angered by the death, the locals stormed the police post.