Teacher arrested in connection with tampering of a person with albinism grave
Police in Ntchisi District have arrested a primary school teacher in connection with the tampering of a grave of a person with albinism on September 9, this year at Chandawira Village in Traditional Authority Vuso Jere in the district
Ntchisi Police Spokesperson, Richard Kaponda, identified the accused as Zuzeni Banda, 36, who is a teacher at Chitundu Primary School and hails from Chithonje Village in Traditional Authority Malenga’s area in the district.
The arrest of the teacher brings the number of people arrested over the incident to eleven. Eight of the suspects who include 20-year-old Blessings Yohane were arrested on September 13, all coming from Sandwe Village in Traditional Authority Malenga in the district.
The grave of Nyama James, born in 1927 who was a person with albinism was found tampered with on September 9, this year.
When the matter was reported to police, they exhumed the body and discovered that some parts were missing.
“After exhuming the dead body for further investigations, police established that some body parts which included both legs and the right arm were missing,” said Harry Namwaza, Police Public Relations Officer for Central Eastern Region.
Meanwhile, the body was reburied on Thursday, September 16 at the deceased home at Chandawira Village.
The District Social Welfare Office supported the reburial by providing funds for a coffin, quarry stone and cement for sealing the new grave.
The office in collaboration with police also provided vehicles which ferried the body and the deceased’s relations to and from the district hospital mortuary where it was being kept after it was exhumed, according to the district’s Social Welfare Officer, Wilson Milanzi.
The body has now been reburied right in the village and not at the graveyard where it was buried at first. The decision to change the burial site was reached at by relations of the deceased for close supervision.
This is very sad development