Fights over petty issues worry Dibete police
Pini Bothoko | Tuesday March 7, 2023 06:00
On Friday The Monitor visited Dibete Police Station Commander, Superintendent Meshack Ranku and had a chat with him and asked him which cases continue to be on the rise in his policing area and he pointed out fights over petty issues as a concern.
He said people are now clearly not valuing the sanctity of human life because the said petty issues that always lead to deaths include arguments during beer drinking, fights over money and arguments of partners in love relationships.
Ranku said last year they recoded 24 cases of assault common and these year they have already recorded five cases. “Last year we recorded 20 cases of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and this year already we have recorded three cases. We recorded two cases of grievous bodily harm in 2022, nine cases of unlawful wounding the same year and two cases in 2023.
As for murder, we have only recorded one case this year,” he said.
Ranku revealed that they are currently investigating a case in which brothers, (an 18-year-old and his 24-year-old brother) of Maaloso ward in Dibete were arraigned before Mahalapye Magistrates Court faced with a single count of murder after they allegedly stabbed a 23-year-old man with a sharp object that resulted in death following a misunderstanding at a local bar.
He said they continue to record cases in which people lose their precious lives after they were involved in fights over petty issues. “It is alleged that the trio, including the deceased, were involved in a misunderstanding near a certain bar that resulted in one of them being stabbed to death with a knife. Investigations into the matter are ongoing to establish what really happened that fateful night,” Ranku said.
Ranku stated that in most of these fights, knives are used urging members of the public to leave knives out of disputes as efforts to tackle knife crime remain a challenge. “Every weekend, clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with patients with life threatening knife wounds as the country grapples with an emerging knife culture among young adults.
We have since established that knife crime particularly among the youth, especially young men, is worsened by alcohol intake,” he said. He stated that when doing regular stop and search patrols, they always find young men in possession of knives and other objects, which are usually used as weapons whenever there is an argument. Ranku said they always record murder cases in which people die from knife stabbing and grievous bodily harm incidents with the majority of both victims and perpetrators being the youth. “I have established that people who carry knives appear to have confidence (as they can) fight back when they are involved in misunderstandings.
Mostly, it will be men stabbing each other or stabbing their lovers in love relationship disputes. We have been conducting awareness campaigns urging people to respect the sanctity of life, to refrain from carrying knives and avoid settling disputes through violent means but our efforts continue to fall into deaf ears,” Ranku said. However, Ranku said efforts are in place to establish why young men prefer to carry knives, especially at night and at entertainment places.