Rights activist Trapence suffers suspected terror attack

Rights activist Gift Trapence says his residence was nearly put on electric fire when a suspected terror attacker deliberately pulled down a power pole near the house.

Trapence, one of the fearless organisers of anti-Jane Ansah protests, said a driver pulled up at an electricity pole near his house in Lilongwe and knocked down the pole down using a tipper before he ran away.

“This was a calculated move to set my house on fire. This tipper deliberately knocked down the electricity pole. The driver raised the tipper to pull down the pole,” said Trapence.

He said his watchman was alerted by a spark and when he went outside, he saw the driver of the ripper running away.

“If this was an accident, why was the driver running away? Well, we have managed to identify the owner of the tipper and we are dealing with the issue,” said Trapence, the vice chairperson of the powerful Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC).

He ruled out going to police to report the incident, saying the police are always accomplices in such attacks and they do nothing to investigate after the issues are reported to them.