Scores arrested in police swoop on illegal drinking, unlicensed shebeens

Scores were arrested in a police swoop on ill-time-operating bars and off-time drunkards in Nairobi Eastland’s Tena Estate. The early Monday afternoon operation saw many illegal bars closed and drunkards arrested. Most of those arrested were young people who were spending their day in illegally operated unlicensed alcohol dens around Tena Estate.

It was not known whether the recent high spate of crime in the area informed the swoop, most recent being the early afternoon execution of a businessman along Manyanja Road in the same area. But according to witnesses of both events, the two are related.

Mwaseda*, a trader along Manyanja Road says that it might be that the police are trying to keep the area under security check after Saturday afternoon’s violent protests against the execution of the businessman and his colleagues in a car.

However, like the proverbial rattrap, that catches both the guilty and innocent, many other suspects were caught up in the exercise. Young people who were found lazily hanging out around the pubs found themselves on the wrong side of the law too. They were hurriedly hurled onto a police track parked along the Manyanja Road. Police also suspected that there could be under-age drinkers who sip at the illegal shebeens.