Student dies as Magena residents engage police over man's death

A schoolboy was killed and a police station vandalised in Magena, Kisii as residents engaged police over the Friday death of a butchery attendant.  

The meat dealer identified as Zablon Ontinta was allegedly killed near the IEBC office which is opposite the local police station.

Officers were accused of failing to heed to the man's distress call as goons knifed him to his death.

"He was returning home at around 10 in the night when unidentified goons waylaid and killed him. The police could have responded to his distress calls as it was metres away from the station," Nyangena Gesera, a resident, said. 

A matatu driver found the body dumped next to a teacher's homestead near Magena Boys High School.

Following the incident, residents took to streets, lit bonfires using tyres to protest what they termed a laxity by the police to stem soaring crime in the area.

Speaking to journalists, however, police said they had begun investigations into the killing and vowed to track the killer and bring him to book.

Police disputed reports that the man was killed near their police station.

"The body was found five hundred metres away and not here as they are claiming," Kenyenya deputy county commissioner Mwele Ngao said. 

He urged for calm as they look into the circumstances in which the trader was killed.

He also denied claims of increasing cases of crime saying many of them were isolated.

Teargas was lobbed after the residents blocked the road disrupting traffic along the Kisii -Kilgoris Highway.

At Magena police station, doors and windowpanes were extensively damaged during the confrontation between stone wielding residents and police.

GSU officers were called in from Transmara to stop the violence. 

On Sunday, some officers were seen moving from the residential units outside the police station.

(edited by O. Owino)