Bugiri, Uganda | URN | Police in Busoga East has summoned the Bugiri district Local Council V (LCV) chairman Davidson Mulumba for assaulting a police officer, Cpl Fred Wabwire, the in-charge of Bugiri general hospital’s police post.
Wabwire says that the district LCV chairman slapped him, before boxing him several times in the stomach during the wee-hours of Friday 27, October 2023 morning.
He narrates that the impasse resulted from Mulumba’s hesitancy to identify himself, yet he had camouflaged with a black hooded jacket, while accompanied by other four men riding different motorcycles. Wabwire notes that, when he insisted on searching them with an aim of ruling out possession of dangerous weapons, his entourage instead insulted him with obscene words.
He says that, Mulumba stepped forward and assaulted him, as his entourage chanted on, only to be rescued by patient attendants’ who alerted his superiors about the impasse and that’s how he realized that his attacker was the district chairperson himself.
Wabwire says that, patients’ property, coupled with hospital equipment were often missing under unclear circumstances and they resolved on searching all individuals either accessing or exiting the hospital, alongside the vehicles of staff as a measure of averting this vice.
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However, Mulumba says that he recieved information from whistleblowers, informing him on how police personnel were fond of locking the hospital gates at around midnight, before turning around to extort money as a means of clearing them to enter.
Mulumba further denies assaulting Wabwire, arguing that, he just went on a fact-finding mission to ascertain how patients were being handled in the night, only to be insulted by the officers he found on duty.
Meanwhile, the Bugiri district police commander, Godwin Ochaki says that there is no justifiable reason for anyone to beat up another person and it is further demeaning for anyone to be assaulted in public.
Ochaki notes that, Wabwire filed a case of assault at Bugiri central police station and inquiries are ongoing to ascertain the merit in his claims. He adds that, they have started recording statements from eyewitnesses and written summons were equally sent to Mulumba, with an aim of according him fair hearing.
