Police in Blantyre have agreed with the residents of Chitawira and surrounding areas to work together in order to reduce crime occurrences in the area.
The agreement follows series of robbery cases which have been torturing the area for some time.
Speaking during the meeting which took place on Monday 2 May, 2022 at Chitawira Primary School in the district, Mr Obrey Nyirenda DCP who is the newly Officer In-Charge for Blantyre Police Station revealed his vision of creating a safe Blantyre City by among others, reaching a point where there can be free movement of people day and night without being attacked.
He said he want Blantyre City where stories of street connected children should be of the past and a Blantyre where flow of traffic should be smooth always.
Nyirenda challenged members of the community to jointly work with Police in order to achieve all these dreams.
On this, the Officer In-Charge reminded the community of their responsibility in security management so that they should take them for implementation.
Mr Nyirenda said the “Know your neighbour” initiative where everyone is encouraged to find out about their neighbours in order to know them fully will help to ensure that the suspects of some cases are known as they reside within the same locations with everyone.
He also urged the communities to have joint patrols with Police within their locations so that the criminals are easily identified and arrested.
The other thing which the Officer in charge mentioned was about condemnation of mob justice.
The Officer In-Charge gave example of what was happening to Chilobwe while the meeting was in progress where the community members were smashing the police unit in demand for a murder suspect who is already in police custody with the aim of killing him on their own.
Mr Nyirenda said mob justice is against the laws of Malawi and said that all those involved in that act will be arrested and prosecuted.
He therefore urged the participants to sensitise their friends in the community to refrain from such behaviour and accept the law to take its action whenever there is need.
In her remarks, group Village head Zingwangwa who attended the meeting backed the point of “Know your neighbour” initiative and encouraged her people to work together with the police in order to reduce the crime in her area.
The group Village head Zingwangwa thanked the Police management for managing to remove street children from Blantyre streets within the past two weeks but only expressed fear that the removed children may now find place for themselves in the locations where they are likely to disturb peace to the people.
She promised to source some security needs for the community neighbourhood security groups so that by doing patrols intensively, they should deal with the problem.
The meeting which was organised to discuss on what can be done to deal with the problem of crime in the area was attended by members of the community from Chilobwe, Zingwangwa, chimwankhunda, Soche East and Chitawira just to mention.
It is expected that following this fruitful meeting, there will be reduced crime registration in the area as every person has been empowered to take an active role in the fight against crime.
