War vet goes beserk, beats schoolchildren

By Mugove Tafirenyika

A War veteran based in Mashonaland Central is in hot soup with the authorities after he went berserk late last year and savagely assaulted 116 pupils at a local primary school for alleged indiscipline.

As a result, Solomon Samu will appear in court today, after he was recently arrested for the merciless attacks on the pupils of Nyamuti Primary School — following months of dithering by local police officers who had been told of the incident which occurred on October 3 last year.

Samu, who hails from Kanyemba Village under Chief Dotito in Mount Darwin, is alleged to have confronted the school’s deputy headmaster, Paddington Musake, demanding the “right” to beat up all the children at the school because they had “ill-discipline”.

It is alleged that when Samu made the bizarre demand, a fearful Musake felt powerless to stop him, as the seemingly deranged war veteran moved quickly to beat the learners, beginning with Grade Seven pupils who were about to write their final exams.

After beating the Grade Seven pupils in the full view of their stunned teachers, he allegedly called on the Grade six and five learners, whereupon he meted on them the same punishment.

Samu only stopped the beatings when Musake and the other teachers eventually gathered the courage to threaten to call police to deal with him.

Despite the incident happening in October last year, and school authorities immediately filing a formal complaint with police against the war veteran, he was only arrested last week after the intervention of parents and the Social Welfare department.

One of the social welfare officials who intervened, Willie Chideya, told the Daily News yesterday that a team led by the officer-in-charge of CID in Mount Darwin, Trymore Makunya, had been deployed to the school to gather all relevant information, leading to Samu’s arrest.

“What we did as the Social Welfare department was to go to the school in the company of law enforcement agents, to gather information.

“We realised that the children’s rights had been seriously violated and thus called on the police to do their work.

“We also went on to lecture the learners on their rights … that they must not allow people to beat them up and that they are protected by the law.

“We tried to assure them that nothing of that sort will ever happen again,” Chideya said.
Samu will appear before Mount Darwin magistrate Rutendo Muchena today, after he was given bail last week. DailyNews