Kimaiyo: Hundreds arrested over violence related crimes

By Kipchumba Some

KENYA: Seven hundred people have been arrested and charged with various crimes related to the spate of violence that has wracked certain parts of the country recently, Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo has said.

Most of those arrested, Mr Kimaiyo said, came from Bungoma, Garissa, Mombasa, Busia Mandera and Baringo counties that have become the focus of runaway crimes.

Kimaiyo was speaking in an interview on KTN Live Wire on Thursday evening. He said most of the crimes were related to youth idleness after the political campaigns came to an end.

“Some of these criminal gangs were used in the campaign periods and were used to handouts from politicians whom they were campaigning for,” he said.

Macabre attacks

Several people were killed in surprise macabre attacks in Bungoma and Busia counties last month. The police said political motives were behind the attacks

Kimaiyo said the incidences were isolated and added that lack of proper intelligence was to blame for the surprise nature it got the police.

While saying that normalcy has largely returned to the troubled county, he called on the government to increase funding to the police service.

He noted that Bungoma County, which is made up of four districts, is facing a severe vehicle shortage that has slowed down police response to crimes.

Kimaiyo, who was sworn in to office five months ago in December 2012, said that he had done a good job so far given that he took charge at a sensitive political time.

Good job

As crimes in Bungoma and Busia subside, the focus of the police will be focused on Garissa and Mandera counties where attacks on civilians and security forces continue unabatedly.

The Somali insurgent group Al Shabaab has been blamed for a series of attacks in Garissa that has claimed dozens of lives in the past month.

Meanwhile political rivalry between the Degodia and Garre clans is blamed for the death of more than 25 people in Mandera County over the past one month.

However, Kimaiyo played down talks of rift between his office and that the national Police Service Commission headed by Johnstone Kavuludi.