The Malawi Police Service say they are still investigating a case in which students at Chancellor College (Chanco) were brutally tortured by police officers during the anti-fees hike demonstrations in July.
This follows a video which went viral on social media showing police officers assaulting two female students at the college which is a constituent college of University of Malawi.
Other students also claimed that they suffered abuse at the hands of police during the demonstrations.
It is now five months since this happened and it seems there is nothing the police are doing to bring their fellow officers to task for torturing the female students.
The law enforcers are also yet to identify the officers involved in the abuse.
However, police through their national publicist James Kadadzera said investigations are still underway.
Kadadzera said the matter has taken them much time because there are five cases under microscope on the matter.
He further said it is not good that the public is pointing fingers at the police forgetting that the students also injured some officers.
“There are several things we are looking into on the matter. Mind you there are some students who manhandled a police officer, a gun was confiscated and destroyed, our car’s wind screen got broken.”
“In addition to that the students too tortured a certain lady as the rice she was selling got mixed with sand. So we are investigating on these issues and soon we will be through with the investigations,” said Kadadzera.
When the video clip went viral, many Malawians were angry over the abuse and the People’s Party (PP) wrote the Inspector General of police asking for the firing of the police officer who was captured beating the female students.
The students were demonstrating against the University of Malawi’s decision to raise fees from K275,000 to K400,000.
President Mutharika later cut the hiked fees by K50,000, which means generic students at the Chancellor College are now paying K350,000.
