City of Crime and Sin: Nairobi is the modern day ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’
Insecurity in Nairobi has deteriorated to an extent women are raped in broad daylight with their perpetrators cheering, shooting videos and urging on a rascal threatening the victim with death.
In scenes reminiscent of Sodom and Gomorrah, a video that has gone viral shows a woman being raped on a city street in broad daylight while onlookers cheer on the perpetrator, thus raising serious concerns on the state of security in Nairobi.
In the video, the woman tries to fight of the offender as she is pinned on the ground. When she cries out that she is being raped, the crowd urges the attacker on. The victim gives in after being threatened with death.
The incident happened at 11 am last Sunday right in the Nairobi Central Business District, according to a shop owner on the street where the offence occurred.
“I was away from the premises since we close on Sundays. I learnt about the case through the video circulating online and when policemen came arresting those found hanging around. It is gross,” the man said.
The shop owner said it was not the first time such an incident had happened there.
Nairobi police commander Joseph Ole Tito, said police arrested “a few culprits” to assist with investigations.
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However, he speculated there might have been an arrangement between the woman and the man which went out of hand after a curious crowd gathered and started filming. He admitted it was not the first such incidence.
Police now want the woman who was assaulted to come forward and help in identify the suspects.
“We have not been able to get a complainant. We rounded up a few characters around there but the complainant must come forward and tell us: This is the person who assaulted me.”
He described their pursuit of the case in the absence of a complainant as trial and error.
Central Police Station OCPD, Robinson Githuku, however, said the 12 people were in custody including the man caught on camera on the act. He said the woman was needed to record a statement.
“We are still following our leads to find the woman because we hear she frequents the neighbourhood. If it is rape, then we will charge the man with indecent assault, rape and creating public nuisance. If otherwise, we will charge the two with creating public nuisance,” said Mr Githuku.
A woman who supplies food to traders on the street said 12 people were arrested by police on Wednesday, a day after the video went viral on internet, over “idling.”
She said she knew the woman in the video, saying she spends some time among with youths on that street.
MUGGINGS AND ROBBERIES
“She was said to be among those arrested but on Wednesday evening I saw her,” she added.
“The spiteful part,” she said, “is that a crowd gathered and cheered on notwithstanding the lady’s pleas, which makes us question our moral uprightness.”
And it gets worse: The Saturday Nation recently saw statements by a girl who says she was recruited into crime by a policewoman who is married to a prominent officer in the Kenya Police Service ranks.
The girl detailed how the policewoman convinced her to put up in her house, taking her books and other personal effects with her.
It took a frantic search by her parents to have her back. She disclosed that other students were also being recruited into crime by this policewoman, and that they would be executed once they were no longer useful or when they were perceived to have known too much.
Incidents of residents being waylaid by muggers and robbers in broad daylight are also on the increase as notorious gangs like 40 brothers control the streets with law enforcers on patrol curiously unaware.
People are robbed of hard earned cash and other personal effects as they leave ATM lobbies, Forex Bureaus and M-Pesa shops— and even they go about their businesses.
The leader of one criminal gang was said to bizarrely insist that those who take part in the crime must show a piece of torn cloth from each victim as proof that they deserve a share of the loot at the end of the day.