Namutumba, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Busoga East police are holding a man accused of dropping leaflets in the community with threatening messages in Namutumba district. The suspect is Ronald Nantamu, a resident of Mawundo village in Namutumba sub-county.
He was arrested on Easter Sunday for dropping leaflets with messages directing residents to vacate the village and pave way for development activities or risk losing their lives.
Police swung into action after receiving complaints from community members who found the leaflets in their compounds. Detectives used canine dogs and after inspecting several homes within the village, zeroed in on Nantamu’s home.
The detectives recovered an unspecified number of leaflets, pens, markers and plain papers, which the suspect is believed to have used to write the life-threatening leaflets.
Esther Namwase told journalists that the leaflet that was dropped in her compound on Saturday night contained messages instructing her to vacate from the village within seven days.
“The leaflet was written detailing the time frame granted to me by the author to vacate the village and I handed it over to the area LC1 chairperson, only to realize that over 13 families in our village had received similar threatening leaflets,” she said.
The area LCI chairperson, Hussein Kisubi says that he engaged the police after receiving several complaints from residents about the leaflets. “We first of all thought that the leaflets were being dropped by school-going children. However, I resolved to alert the police after noticing that there was increasing panic and uncertainty resulting from such leaflets,” he said.
Muhammad Magombe, the Namutumba Gombolola Internal Security Officer says that some of the leaflets contained death threats to non-compliant members and sketches of skeletons.
Busoga East’s police spokesperson Diana Nandawula says that inquiries are still ongoing, adding that a detailed report concerning the same shall be released after concluding investigations.
*****
URN