The angels above wept as they witnessed a group of heartless Nkrumah Hall residents at Makerere University mercilessly beating up and later setting on fire a suspected thief in the wee hours of Saturday with absolute disregard to the fragile thing that human life is. That nothing he could ever steal is worth taking away his life.
The suspected thief had allegedly broken into a students’ room on the third floor of the hall and in the fracas that ensued between him and the student, the former is alleged to have stabbed the latter who then pushed him all the way to the ground three stories below. The suspected thief tumbled all the way down and fell with a thud into a narrow but deep trench, breaking his legs in the process.
Due to the terrible pain he was in, the suspected thief started crying on top of his voice as his victim also kept shouting “thief! thief!” The noise awakened other students who rushed out of their beds all the way out of the hall to where the suspect was.
They dragged him near the main entrance to the hall and started savagely beating and hitting him with any and every object in sight. Some kicked him in the stomach while others kicked everywhere on the head and anywhere else their legs could reach. His cries and pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears as blood freely oozed from his mouth, ears, nose and the gores that had been inflicted on his head and body. A number of crestfallen students watched from a distance what was going on in terror and disbelief, shocked by the most beastly of hearts that their colleagues were exhibiting.
The suspected thief, now beyond recognition, lay motionless on the ground, his hands unsuccessfully trying to cover the little that was left of his former face. By the time they set him on fire, he hardly had any energy left in him to draw in a breath of oxygen.
Pleased with what they had done, the students broke into victory chants of “Make a circle. Circle. Make a circle. Circle.” It’s not clear whether the suspect was still alive by the time police came and doused the fire.
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Mob justice should and must be condemned in the strongest terms possible. There is nothing a thief can ever steal that is worth taking away his life. If he must be punished before the law take its course, let the punishment be sensible but not to the point of taking away another person’s life. Two wrongs do not make a right.
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