Well done BPS, but...

Mmegi Editor | Monday February 28, 2022 06:00

This was shortly after 11 men had launched a cash-in-transit (CIT) heist at Gaborone’s Main Mall. As reported by the BPS public relations unit, the 10 were killed in an exchange of fire. While it is early to establish the accuracy of the reports, we are delighted at the fact that the exchange led to only one police officer being shot at while 10 suspects were downed.

This should be a loud enough message to robbers and aspiring others that our armed forces are capable of taking them on without getting killed in the process. We acknowledge the contributions of all forces including the spy agency, Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS), the army and different teams of BPS members for timely locating the suspects and recovering the loot.

It is however, disappointing that on the same night after the ‘massacre’, other robbers still went on to rob Choppies in Metsimotlhabe. This calls for the security organs to put in extra work and try to establish the root cause of these crimes. Could it be a funded operation? An international syndicate? We trust that the spy agency boss, Peter Magosi and his agents at the DIS are eager to be in good books of Batswana and this is the perfect opportunity for that.

Despite this, we hope the officers did not just act on what their Minister, Kagiso Mmusi, and Commissioner Keabetswe Makgophe had said calling on decisive action against robbers and smash and grabbers.

The law still needs to be followed to the letter when dealing with these criminals.

The moment we just execute, human rights bodies, lawyers and indeed the criminals could then undermine the efforts of cleaning the streets by instituting legal proceedings. There is need to find a sustainable manner of dealing with these robbers to make CIT safe again.

In that regard, security companies should also join hands with other security organs in improving their efficiency as they cannot always be depending on government’s limited resources. One of the things to do would be to ensure they employ reliable and well-trained individuals to deal with situations as best as they can.

Meanwhile, it was worrying that dozens of Batswana were in Phase 2 when the shoot out took place. That was a very dangerous thing to do. The robbers could have shot them or they could have obstructed security officers from doing their job. Ours as the community is to report suspicions of criminal activities to the authorities. They are people we live with everyday and we should help the police get them off the streets.

Today's thought

“If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.”

– Francis Bacon.