The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has directed the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to probe an incident where county enforcement officers seriously wounded two teenagers for hawking.
This is after two sisters aged 17 and 18 were on February 4 assaulted by the county askaris while they were hawking sugarcane at the outskirts of the town.
Their father, Michael Nyonje, wrote to the DPP after the initial investigating officer is alleged to have became hesitant to conclude the probe and charge the people behind the attack.
The victims are secondary school students are said to have been escorted to a county officer.
However, after realising the two girls had been critically injured he released them without preferring any charge.
After treatment at Kakamega County General Hospital, the two reported the incident at Kakamega Police Station on February 3 where they were issued with P3 forms.
The distraught parent in a letter copied to the Inspector General of Police and the regional police boss, said he has lost confidence in the investigating officer for his actions which he said were ‘a conspiracy to defeat justice’.
Little money
Mr Nyonje said that the law enforcers stole the little money the girls’ had made that day.
In a letter seen by The Standard, Western Region Senior DPP Patrick Gumo noted the laxity of the investigating officer assigned to investigate the matter and directed the matter to be assigned a separate investigating officer.
Mr Gumo added that after perusing the medical documents supplied to the officer regarding the attack, there is sufficient evidence to support the offence of assault yet the investigations have never been concluded for over two months.
“We have noted that due to the said inaction by the investigating officer, the victims have lost confidence in him and, therefore, we advise that you call for the said police file and establish the said suspects. Proceed to arrest the suspects and charge them appropriately,” read the DPP’s letter to the DCI.
According to P3 forms supplied to the DPP, the degrees of injuries were found to be grievous.
The enforcement officers have been on the spot for terrorising business operators within the township.
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