By Weswa Ronnie
BUDUDA
There were serious confrontations on Monday, 21st October, 2024 at Bukalasi Sub County in Bududa district between police and locals over taking the body of 23 year old man for postmortem.
George Namatati, a resident of Bukalasi Sub County had committed suicide from the house of his father on allegations that his father failed to allocate him a piece of land to sell so as to buy a bajaji motorcycle for boda boda business.
Police wanted to take body to Mbale city mortuary for postmortem but locals and relatives of the deceased refused on the ground that police asks for a lot of money before giving back dead bodies for burial.
According to Sarah Khaiza and Stephen Kuremu one of the locals, there was no reason for police to carry out a postmortem because everyone knows that the deceased died by hanging himself.
They argued that police always demands between Shs200,000 to 500,000 before they hand back bodies after postmortem for burial yet the family is not having that kind of money.
Police was overpowered after locals armed with pangas, sticks, and bricks wanted to lynch police officers if they insisted on taking away the body.
Rogers Taitika, the Elgon region police spokesperson condemned the manner in which the family members and locals behaved saying they should know that postmortems help police to start investigations and get enough evidence on that particular case but not to get money as they think.
