The class seven pupil killed by the police in Kilifi county last week was buried on Saturday.
Katana Kazungu was shot dead in Tsangasini area of Kaloleni constituency on Tuesday but the killer cops have not been arrested.
Leaders who attended the Saturday burial gave the police a seven-day ultimatum to arrest the cops.
“The officers are known. We have given the Mariakani OCPD and OCS a seven-day ultimatum to arrest the officers who killed Katana, failure to which we shall hold demonstrations at that police station demanding their arrest,” said Kaloleni MP Paul Katana.
He said he will not rest until the culprits are put behind bars.
Katana promised to follow up the matter with the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, lawyers and civil society organisations.
Kilifi Deputy Governor Edmund Saburi said the county commissioner and the police boss must give an account of the progress they have made.
“By Monday [today], I want the county commissioner and the police boss to tell us how far they have gone with this case. We want answers. We do not want cover-ups,” he said.
Thousands of residents attended the burial. Mourners, including the deceased’s classmates at Ndatani Primary School, cried in pain while others fainted.
Katana’s father, Mzee Kazungu Fondo, could not hold back his tears as the coffin bearing his son’s remains was being carried to the burial site.
Area MCA Alphonce Baya said the officers who killed the 17-year-old boy “deserve to be bewitched” and the wizards and witchdoctors in Kilifi should take up the task.
“We now have a reason to bewitch them [officers]. Instead of going after your neighbours, go after the officers involved in the killing of this young boy,” Baya said.
Katana is said to have been shot dead by officers who were trailing a truck that had gone missing.
POLICE SHOT AIMLESSLY
He had just come from a funeral when he and his friends were called to help push a truck that was stuck in the mud after a heavy downpour. The truck was transporting stones from a nearby quarry.
Police officers arrived at the scene and started shooting aimlessly, killing Katana.
Local police boss Kennedy Osando said police were alerted by the owner of the vehicle, which transports stones from a nearby quarry, that it had gone missing, prompting a search.
He said the officers traced the vehicle and found it stuck in the mud after a heavy downpour. Osando said the police found a “gang of youth armed with crude weapons surrounding it.”
“Our officers found the vehicle surrounded by people armed with crude weapons, who were actually hostile to the officers. They were forced to shoot in the air to disperse the crowd,” Osando said.
He claimed that when police were about to leave, they discovered an unidentified body with gunshots in the chest nearby.
Katana’s body was taken to the Coast General Hospital mortuary.
The Kaloleni MP last week told journalists that postmortem examination showed Katana was shot from close range.
“The bullet went through his back, passed through one side of the heart and broke one of the ribs before it exited through the stomach,” said the MP.