Police gag Marobela villagers at prayer meeting

Pini Bothoko | Tuesday June 17, 2014 06:59

 

The gathering held prayers, but just addressed the general crime in the village, despite their intention to highlight last year’s shocking incidents of violent murders that gripped the village. 

 Though villagers gathered at the Kgotla and several churches assembled to hold the prayers, it was easy to tell that the original objective had been distorted.  In the invitation to Mmegi and other publications, it was clearly stated that the Village of Marobela would gather in memory of the four people who had been murdered. Senior Superintendent Pelontle Kesupile was to be the guest speaker at the event, which was spearheaded by the village leadership and church fraternity.  Though Kutlwano police head of traffic Kesupile was in attendance, he spoke for a few moments when he took to the podium. He, however, did not speak on the murders, but instead commended the village for praying against crime.  All the speakers talked about the general issue of crime and not the specific one that drew attendants as per the invitation. 

One of the organisers Kangangwani Botana and chairperson of Marobela Minister’s Fraternal were visibly constrained to comment.

“We are concerned of high crime rate in our village and we decided to hold prayers in our main Kgotla.

“We invited churches to pray and seek God’s intervention in fighting crime in the village,” he said.  Botana said that he knew that prayers can make the impossible possible and praying as a village meant they could achieve more. 

He said that there is a problem of rape, murder as well as other crimes in the village that needed God’s intervention.

“Our intentions are not to see people taken to prison, serving years and later on coming back to take over where they have left off with crime. “We want to see people stop crime and do good for the village.  We want to bring peace in the village and between victims and those who wronged against them,” he said.

The village Kgosi, Rapelang Khuwe said that they agreed with churches to host an event meant to pray for peace following the recent crimes in the village.

Khuwe said that a lot of the crime in the village particularly in the past years left villagers hopeless. He said by hosting a prayer meeting of that nature, they wanted to advise every villager to seek God in their lives. “If people can fear God, we anticipate they can stop committing crime. We want to see people, especially youth changing their behaviour.  

“We invited the police because we wanted them to know our intentions in fighting crime in our village,” said Khuwe.