Muslim Council demand justice on Njaunju, slain police officers

Muslims in Liwonde took to the streets on Thursday to express their anger over the state failure to arrest and prosecute murders of their Muslims, including a police officer who was killed while on duty in Msundwe, Lilongwe and Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) director of corporate affairs Issa Njauju on July 4 2014.

They also demand justice for a police officer who was killed at Goliati in Thyolo furing the Joyce Banda administration.

The protest march went in parallel with the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) sponsored demonstrations who are pressing the police act on their officers who raped women and girls at Msundwe.

The Muslim Supreme Council of Malawi has given government a two week ultimatum to arrest the killers of  the Police officer in Msundwe in October 2019.

The Muslim body leaders—chairperson Yasin Katungwe and secretay Imran Katona— have vowed to hold more demonstrations in cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe if there will be inaction from government.

Sheik Yasin Katungwe presented the petition to Machinga District commissioner Rosemary Nawasha, who promised to deliver it to relevant authorities.

“Our God (Allah) demands us to take action when we are aggrieved. Today, we are  demonstrating showing  our displeasure with the death of Muslims who are murdered while on government duty ,”he said,

The concerned Muslims say they are concerned that the law enforcers are taking time to prosecute suspects behind the murders.

UK murder investigation experts presented their findings into Njauju’s assassination to Malawi Government last year for its consideration.

The Malawi Government, through the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, wrote the British Government requesting technical support on the matter in an attempt to bring to an end the four-year murder mystery that has eluded the country’s law enforcement agencies.

Malawi requested support for investigations in the murder cases of Njauju and Robert Chasowa, a fourth-year Polytechnic student who was killed on campus in 2011, but the UK government only nodded to support the Njauju case.

In June 2016, the Malawi police was the first to launch investigations into Njauju’s murder, said they were having difficulties to conclude their investigations, apparently because the murderers “were very sophisticated”.Police Service (MPS), who were

The Police went as far as offering a tip-off bounty of K1.5 million, later raised to K2 million an indication that government was making little or no headway on the matter.

Njaunju’s body was found half-buried behind Presidential Villas in Lilongwe while his official vehicle was burnt to ashest wo kilometres away, at Mtsiriza, a peri-urban township in Lilongwe. The case is seen as one of the country’s most high-profile murders.

So far, only two people, a local sand miner and a police officer, were arrested in connection to the murder.

While Imedi, who came from  Mawuni Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Makanjira in Mangochi, died October 2019  following a mob attack at Msundwe on the outskirts of Lilongwe City along Lilongwe-Mchinji Road, where police were deployed to quell violence.