In a move that could further dent Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s much vaunted global re-engagement drive, four operatives from the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Monday reportedly descended on two Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) student activists after they reportedly demanded justice on three female opposition MDC Alliance leaders currently remanded in custody and accused of faking their own abductions.

According to reports from Chinhoyi, the duo of Lionel Shayahama and 21-year-old Talent Madava (main picture) who is also deputy president of the Zimbabwe National Students Union (Zinasu), was reportedly picked up on the campus by four plainclothes CID operatives Monday afternoon.

This comes after they reportedly voiced concern over the ‘illtreatment’ of serving Harare West legislator Joanna Mamombe, Cecilia Chimbiri and Netsai Marova, who were said to have been subjected to enforced abductions before being found two days later, dumped and badly tortured at Muchapondwa business centre in Bindura a couple of weeks ago.

The three opposition figures are currently remanded in custody at Chikurubi Maximum Prison for allegedly falsifying their abductions. They have since applied for bail.
Although national police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi could not be immediately reached for confirmation on the latest incident in Chinhoyi, Zwnews understands that Madava was still being held at Chinhoyi Central Police Station.
Details about the suspected arrests were still skeletal during the time of publishing.
Meanwhile, in the capital Harare, MDC-A Youth Assembly Chitungwiza North Secretary, Tryvine Musokeri was also arrested and national publicist for the youth wing, Stephen Tshuma confirmed the arrests Monday afternoon.
Tshuma revealed that Musokeri is being accused of’threatening one Yvone Musarurwa from (rival MDC-T leader) Thokozani Khupe renegades on Facebook’.

Thokozani Khupe

“He was accompanied to the police station by his lawyer and party’s National Vice Chairperson, Hon Job Sikhala. (Musokeri’s) arrest add (sic) to a high number of MDC Alliance Youth Assembly activists who have been rounded up by the police in a blitzkrieg aimed at silencing the opposition,” said Tshuma in a statement.

Job Sikhala

He also demanded for the unconditional release of the three remanded youth leaders, saying the main opposition was not ‘not a terrorist group but a political party’.
“The MDC Alliance is not a terrorist group but a political party which carries a better vision and hopes for the suffering masses and as such our members must never be treated as terrorists,” he said.
According to the party’s youth assembly spokesperson, the ‘real terrorists’ such as the ‘Gulen Movement-linked (Health and Child Care minister) Obadiah Moyo are walking scot free despite looting millions of Covid19 funds meant to help masses’.

More details to follow…
Zwnews