Police in crackdown on home-made guns
Police have raised the alarm over the high number of home-made pistols being used in committing crime in Nairobi.
Statistics from the police headquarters show that since March, a total of 93 firearms and 471 rounds of ammunition were recovered from criminals.
Twenty-nine of the arms were home-made pistols. The rest were Beretta pistols, Ceska pistols and AK-47 rifles.
Since the beginning of this month, the Nation has established, police have recovered 16 home-made pistols, half of them from Kayole and Eastleigh.
The figure is higher than that of illegal conventional firearms seized from criminals during the same period.
National Police Service spokesman George Kinoti on Wednesday said officers were now directing their energies on finding the manufacturers of the pistols.
ARMED CRIME
“Several criminals have been arrested with the pistols and they are helping us in our crackdown on the manufacturers and the suppliers and this has helped a lot in reducing the number of armed crime,” Mr Kinoti said, adding that some of the guns get into Kenya from neighbouring countries.
On Monday, two guns were recovered after criminals who were robbing the public were accosted and shot by officers in Mowlem and Kayole.
In the Mowlem incident, police trailed the suspects in Maili Saba at 3.30pm. One was gunned down while the other escaped. The other incident happened at Step One, Kayole.
Five rounds of ammunition were recovered in the two incidents.
Other guns were seized from criminals in Soweto, Eastleigh, Riruta, Pangani, Zimmerman, Makadara and Buruburu in the past two weeks.
GUNNED DOWN
In Kariobangi, 40-year-old James Maina, who was assaulting his girlfriend Teresiah Wanjiku at her house, was gunned down when he shot at police officers who were responding to her distress call. A home-made pistol was recovered from him.
On Monday, two men attacked and robbed a Mr Abdirahman Adow as he left a mosque in Eastleigh. Police officers shot one of them dead.
Another man was gunned down at the Step One stage in Kayole on the same night.
Police said they accosted the suspect, together with his accomplice, following a complaint from the public. The two defied orders to surrender and, instead, started shooting at officers.
According to Mr Kinoti, the arms that were seized were capable of discharging bullets and killing.