The ManicaPost
Luxson Chananda Crime Watch
As we are into the 2019/2020 festive season, we should remember that our traditional problems have always been crime (prevalent and those of concern), road carnage and other incidents like death due to lightning strikes and drowning.
Hello readers of this popular paper. Your police bring you once again this column — which we all agree has over time heightened our vigilance and increased our knowledge base on crime prevention.
We often note with regret, that the less we talk about crime the more we prop up criminal activity and the more we suffer from its impact.
Back-pedalling our memory over events in this receding year, we focus our attention on those areas where criminals need us in the most vulnerable spots not because they were more shrewd and better capacitated than us, but that we all went to sleep and left our vital points exposed.
As if the human hand was not enough, nature also ruthlessly pounced on us. Remember Cyclone Idai and deaths arising from people being struck by lightning.
This therefore reminds us that policing requires us to always close ranks and stand in line to ward off criminal activity and incidents that threaten and eventually harm our lives.
As we are into the 2019/2020 festive season, we should remember that our traditional problems have always been crime (prevalent and those of concern), road carnage and other incidents like death due to lightning strikes and drowning.
Prevalent crimes are those whose occurrence is more frequent than others while crimes of concern are those crimes whose occurrence is considerably disturbing even if they occur once in a while.
One problem of crime of concern was that of robberies perpetrated around mostly urban, peri-urban and other built-up areas in the province.
We recall the sleepless nights caused by the machete-wielding robbers particularly in the eastern suburbs of Mutare.
Between March and June 2019, criminals went on a housebreaking spree targeting household goods, particularly electrical gadgets. On a more worrisome note, murder cases perpetrated mostly by relatives on relatives increased, particularly in the second half of the year.
A learning point in this matter is that police managed to contain the marauding criminals but only with the support and co-operation of the public.
This was facilitated mainly through widespread circulation of station and individual police contact numbers. The initiative meant that victims could quickly get assistance before the criminals broke into their premises or made good their escape.
It is therefore important that as the police go back to the drawing board, you should be readily available and ascertain for yourself whether you are not being left out in the scheme of things.
The message here is that part of your preparation for the festive season as a responsible citizen must include, if not prioritise, equipping yourself with as many police contact details as possible.
The Police Community Relations departments at this provincial headquarters, district headquarters and all 30 operational stations are already on the ground conducting public meetings and crime awareness campaigns.
For information pertaining to crime or any policing matter, including further contacts for stations within and outside Manicaland, please get in touch with this office on numbers 02020-66637/ 0772 911 632 /0778 408 895.
Let us work together to ensure a crime- and incident free-festive season.
ZRP Manicaland Press and Public Relations
