NUMBER 30                                     AUGUST, 2001

By Perpetual Sichikwenkwe.

CHIPATA police battered and left a Grade eleven pupil from Anoya Boys High School near death because he was involved in a demonstration against the teacher’s strike.

The pupil has since been admitted to Lusaka’s University Teaching Hospital for further treatment.

The seventeen-year-old pupil, David Lungu, was among several pupils from different Schools in Chipata, Eastern province, who were protesting against the Teacher’s strike.

Speaking from his hospital bed at UTH, Lungu told LRF News that on June 1, 2001, pupils from different schools in Chipata decided to demonstrate over the teacher’s strike demanding that they resume work.

However, as they were demonstrating, police approached the pupils whom upon seeing them (police) scampered in all directions.

They managed to catch up with Lungu who fell down as he was trying to run away from them.

Five police officers apprehended him and started beating him using short batons and kicking him with boots. They beat him until he was unconscious and left him lying in a drainage filled with dirty water.

A nurse from a nearby house, who witnessed the beating, took him to her house where she ordered the same police officers to take him to hospital as they were the cause of his unconsciousness.

Lungu did not wake up until the following day making the police officers panic thinking the boy had died.

According to a medical report signed by Dr. Mukanya of Chipata General hospital, Lungu sustained general body pains especially on the liver area and could not move.

It was because of the serious injuries that he was transferred to UTH for further treatment.

Lungu, who has been in hospital for over 2 months now, is admitted to UTH’s Ward C21 bed 23. FULL STORY

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