A 29-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly strangulating to death his 3-year-old physically challenged stepson.
Dedza Police deputy Publicist Sergeant Cassim Manda has identified the boy as Happy Luka.
The incident happened on Wednesday July 23, 2020 at Pitala village in the area of Traditional Authority Kachindamoto in Dedza district.
The suspect who is identified as Harrison Kachingwe on Wednesday morning left home for beer drinking, but his wife Esther aged 26, was first to leave the house to sell tomatoes at Golomoti trading center.
At around 8 O’clock morning, Kachingwe came back home and noticed that his stepson was not in the room.
He started searching for him and found out that the child was in his sister’s room playing.
The boy’s sister was later called by someone within the village to collect clothes to wash in return for money.
Kachingwe took advantage of the girl’s absence to strangulate the boy.
Upon collecting the clothes, the girl went back inside her room to take her clothes to wash them together with the other clothes.
She was surprised to find her physically challenged brother, whom she had been playing with a few minutes before she went out, wrapped up with a cloth and looking motionless.
It is also alleged that the girl saw her stepfather leaving her room as she was coming from where she had gone to collect the clothes.
The matter was reported to neighbors who extended the messages to the mother who at that particular time was at the market selling tomatoes.
During the statement recording at Mtakataka Police Post, Kachingwe’s wife Esther, told the police that her son used to look scared everytime Kachingwe appeared in the house.
According to the autopsy report published by Mua health personnel, Happy’s death was due to strangulatation.
The suspect has been charged with murder and police are investigating the case.
Dedza district so far has registered 23 murder cases compared to last year where 9 cases were reported, the figure represents an increase of over 58%.
