Gunmen brutalise man in Kampala in broad daylight

Brutality. A video grab from Record TV showing the man being arrested in Kampala yesterday. COURTESY PHOTO

What you need to know:

There are increasing cases of soldiers assaulting civilians in broad daylight. Last month, stick- wielding soldiers were seen beating up supporters of MP Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, on his return from USA.

KAMPALA. Armed men believed to have fanned out from a covert state security outfit yesterday seized a man in central Kampala in a gangster-style, and the brutality they deployed drew intense public rage on streets, in homes and on social media.
With the sun overhead at around 1:30pm near Christ the King Church, the half-a-dozen team intercepted and took the unidentified man down commando-style onto a searing bitumen surface.

His plea for clemency was ignored. In a video footage taken by the privately-owned Record Television, which was widely circulated on social media yesterday, a hefty man donning a black trouser and blue-black-grey stripped shirt was captured hitting the subdued man randomly with an AK-47 rifle.

Joint beating
He then turned the butt of the gun to hit his victim multiple times on the left lower abdomen, forcing him to momentarily flip sideways and flatten himself on the surfaced Kimathi Avenue due to intolerable pain. Two other men gripped his hands as the beating happened.

Another holding an automatic assault rifle tried feebly to restrain his menacing colleague, but in vain. A woman, horrified by the brutal assault, but whose face was not shown in the video could be heard exclaiming, “Naye naawe (also, you)!” in relation to the goons’ brazen disposition. This newspaper was unable to establish particulars of the tormentors and their target or what crime he had committed.
“I have just seen the video and I am on my way to Ibanda [district in western Uganda]. I need to first verify [details of the security operatives] before I make any comments,” the UPDF deputy spokesperson, Lt Col Deo Akiiki, said by telephone last evening.

Social media users erupted in universal condemnation of the dastardly act, likening the brutality the operatives deployed yesterday in broad day light to the signature excesses of past regimes.
A Facebook user under the name Nelson Okuku, who identified himself as one of the child soldiers who fought in the National Resistance Army war that brought President Museveni to power in 1986, drew parallels between yesterday’s violence and the 1980s situation that birthed the guerrilla movement.

Public anger
“I am crying all the time I watch such a thing happening in Uganda. Frankly, what you see happening in this video is what made me and gave me determination to join the bush war,” he wrote, making a clarion call to the youth “to ensure you fight for your rights”.
Yesterday’s abduction happened in the glare of dozens of mortified onlookers, some seen in the video clasping their arms across their chests or mumbling inaudible words.

The roughened man was dragged to a 14-seater mini-van, marked like the regular commuter taxis, but with a distinctive tinted windows. He was yanked into the vehicle and his captors, orbiting in the power a gun gives a holder, sat to blockade the doorway and the man’s screams could be heard fading as they sped away.

RISING CASES
Recent incident. There are increasing cases of soldiers assaulting civilians in broad daylight. Last month, stick- wielding soldiers were seen beating up supporters of MP Robert Kyagulanyi, aka Bobi Wine, on his return from USA.