Pangani 6 led by Ahmed Rashid continue with ‘Killing mandate’

                         

  Pangani Police

 

Contrary to the mandate for which it was erected, Pangani Police Station located on Juja road had been on the spot for being a powerhouse of lawlessness.

A simple search of the station on Google search engine reveals numerous complaints of unlawful killings, use of excessive force and corruption.

The officers stationed there, under the infamous Pangani six led by Ahmed Rashid continue to kill crime suspects and protesters in cold blood despite persistent calls to end extrajudicial killings and police brutality.

The latest in a longstanding pattern of excessive force and unlawful killings in Nairobi’s low-income neighbourhoods was the shooting of two suspected criminals who had surrendered, outside the station. 

“We challenged the suspected criminals to surrender but they refused and shot at us. A serious shootout ensued and the officers managed to fatally injure two robbers,” the police claim in their report contrary to a video that has since gone viral.

In the video, two men are seen lying on the ground before the officers sprayed their bodies with bullets in the March 19, 2022 incident.

This however is just one of the many cases where the Pangani police station and the lawless crew of the Pangani 6 have been incriminated in, with little or no action.

A few weeks ago, the police from the station claimed to have ‘cleared’ a group of men whom they said were part of a gang known as Katombi.

Another suspect who had been found in violation of curfew rules and was fine Sh200 also died mysteriously in the Pangani cells, last year.

In yet another video that went viral in 2017, Rashid was captured shooting a man who had handcuffed, unarmed and was begging for his life in broad daylight.

Rashid openly admitted that his mandate is to rid the streets of gangsters and criminals. “Those we profile, we have to get them alive or dead,” he told a BBC journalist.

In Mathare, on December 25, 2019 at about 5:30 p.m., police officers from Pangani shot dead Peter Irungu, 19, and Brian Mung’aru, 20. Both men were kneeling and pleading with police to spare their lives when they were shot, witnesses said.

The witnesses said that the officers arrested the youths, did a body search, and found no weapons on them. One officer grabbed Mung’aru and Irungu by their shirt collars and led them away, while another three officers walked behind with the other two, Felix Ouma and Daniel Gitau, whom they slapped, punched, and kicked as they interrogated them before releasing them.

The officers took Mung’aru and Irungu to the Amana Petrol station terminus, about a kilometer and a half away from the children’s home, and shot both dead.

On December 26, 2019, anti-riot police violently suppressed a protest over the young men’s killings, using live ammunition, tear gas, and beatings. The police beat protesters, injuring more than 10, and arrested many. Police blocked media outlets from accessing Mathare to cover the demonstrations, according to witnesses there.

Five years since the Pangani 6 gang became public, nothing has changed. Missing voices continue to record an increase in police over the years.

On January 2020, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) said it had recorded even more killings, with 3,200 in 2019 alone.

The Police Service Act requires police officers who use lethal fire to report to their immediate superior, explaining the circumstances that necessitated the use of force.

Police officers also are required to report for investigation any use of force that leads to death or serious injury to the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA), a civilian police accountability institution created in 2011 to investigate and prosecute officers implicated in abuses