Cable Sult Engineers escape lynching by angry mob in Jinja

JINJA, UGANDA: At least two employees of Cable Sult Engineering Company were rescued from being lynched by angry mob in Buyengo town council, Jinja district as they attempted to replace a power transformer, Jinja Police has confirmed.

Kiira regional police spokesperson ASP James Mubi says that the employees in question were identified as Gideon Kiiza, the foreman, and Simon Kiyaga, the site engineer who went at night on Wednesday to remove a power transformer and replace it with a new one but unfortunately they didn’t have a new one to replace it which caused mixed reactions from members of the public.

“The two who work with Cable Sult Engineering Company went to Buyengo town council on Wednesday night and wanted to remove the old transformer and replace it with a new one. Locals led by their local council one chairperson were not seeing the transformer at the site, which was to replace the old one”, ASP Mubi said.

The duo according to Mr. Mubi lacked any identification document and this prompted residents to doubt them and wanted to lynch them before police in Kakira responded swiftly to manage the situation

“The purported engineers lacked identification documents and the locals wanted to injure them but good enough police in Kakira received information in time and responded urgently to save their lives. Police in Kakira have already engaged residents by talking to them and the situation has normalized”, Mubi added before urging people to always carry their identification documents or any other letter from their companies and also endeavor to first report to the area chairperson before carrying out any task in a given locality.

“We urge everyone to move with your identification documents like a national identity card or any other introductory letter from the company. In case you go to any village, introduce yourself to the LC 1 chairperson because with government systems we start from the leadership of LC 1 who should first know your motives of going to the village but these issues of moving anyhow are risky”, Kiira regional police mouthpiece ASP James Mubi said.

An average of 11 lives were lost each day in 2021, according to police annual crime report compiled by the Criminal Investigations Directorate. Altogether, 3, 912 lives were lost during the year through assault, poisoning, arson, shooting, domestic violence or mob action.

There was an increase of 40.5 percent in cases of murder by mob action in 2021 compared to 2020 according to the report.
“By the end of 2021, a total of 759 cases of murder by mob action were reported compared to 540 cases reported in 2020, indicating an increase of 40.5 per cent”, the report shows.