Students lit fire, destroy property as they protest murder of their own

Property worth millions was destroyed on Monday after students at the Meru National Polytechnic went on a rampage, protesting the killing of their own.

The irate students stormed Makutano town where they destroyed property, before burning an entire slum at Makutano.

The student, sponsored by the National Youth Service for an electrical engineering course, was mugged and murdered along the Meru-Maua road, before his killers dragged the body and dumped it into a ditch near the slum.

The principal of the polytechnic, Geoffrey Rukunja, said the student from Bungoma County, seemed to have been strangled and hit with a blunt object on the head.

He was attacked near a hotel, which students claimed was a den of criminals.

“We received a call very early in the morning and I personally went to the scene. We found him dead and dumped in a ditch. It seemed he had also been robbed because his pockets appeared to have been ransacked,” Dr Rukunja said.

The polytechnic located on the Meru-Nanyuki highway boasts of about 9,500 students, who have in recent weeks protested rampant insecurity after some of them fell prey to robbers.

The students said robbers were attacking them at their residence within Meru Municipality area, robbing them of household goods including electronics, money and other valuables.