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Bomb scare disrupts businesses in Pangani


Business was halted for a few hours in Pangani area after a car suspected to have been carrying explosives was found parked near a secondary school.

Police received a tip on Thursday morning that a suspicious station wagon was parked in the middle of a road a few kilometres Pangani Police Station where a car bomb that killed two police officers and two suspected terrorists.

Sniffer dog

The area locally known as “Crossroads” was cordoned off and bomb experts were called in to confirm whether there were any explosives.

A sniffer dog confirmed that there was bomb-making material in the car which had been parked just a few metres from Don Bosco Secondary School.

Security officers had a difficult time trying to keep away crowds of curious onlookers since the car was in the middle of a residential area and some houses were less than 10 metres away.

Two attempts to remotely trigger any explosives that could have been in the car were not successful.

General Service Unit officers were dispatched to the area to deal with any potential terrorist threats that would have resulted.

After three hours of consultation and hushed deliberation, the security officers eventually opened the car but did not find any explosives.

The police, however, said that the car must have been recently used to transport  bomb-making materials.

Meanwhile, family members of one of the police officers who died in the Wednesday night car bomb arrived at his home at Pangani police station.

Francis Murage, 54, and his colleague Samwel Cheptuk entered a Toyota NZE that they and three other officers on patrol had intercepted after a traffic offence. The two officers were escorting the suspects to Pangani Police Station.