University students accuse police of engineering chaos

Machakos University College’s student council has accused the police of engineering the chaos that erupted in the school on Monday night.

In a media briefing after the university’s academic board closed the school indefinitely, the student council’s secretary Rotich Bramuel accused the police of provoking the students. He said that the students held their demonstrations peacefully to complain over a power blackout but the police in retaliation started firing live bullets at them. He claimed that the police fired  tear gas canisters  into the dorm rooms where some students were asleep.

Rotich also added that the fire that burned down six cubicles at the university dormitories was as a result the teargas canisters fired into the dorms by the police.

Rotich said that several students were injured while others lost important documents including their certificates in the fire.

He also maintained that no student should be held accountable for damages and destruction of school property by the police.

The student body president Eric Ndemange accused the  academic board of rushing to close the school without consulting the students saying that the move will affect students currently sitting their exams. He urged those sitting for the exams to return to school by today, Tuesday.

Earlier in a media briefing the university’s principal Francis Mathooko said that the indefinite closure was intended to avoid disruption of the ongoing exams adding that the school was yet to quantify the damage caused although police have already started an investigation to establish the cause of the fire that broke out in six cubicles.

The students engaged the police in running battles for more than 30 minutes before they were driven out of the school.