|
Crime: Police must work overtime
2005-09-22 08:19:06
By Editor
The plot, degree of sophistication and daring under which Tuesday’s daylight robbery at Mac-Soms forex shop in Dar es Salaam was executed would have envied the celebrated Hollywood scriptwriter Quentin Tarantino.
Just about a stone throw from a police post and ten-minute walk from the Central Police station, within a span of twenty minutes robbers made away with a hefty 150 million in cash.
The speed and the self-confidence in which the robbers went about their act must have made bystanders briefly wondering whether what they were witnessing was real robbery taking place, or some actors in the middle of some film shooting.
They may not yet reach the level of daring as in other countries, such as the Belfast bank heist of last December in which a gang held the families of two Northern Ireland bank officials hostage for 24 hours before stealing about 20 million pounds in one of Britain’s biggest robberies.
Or the one in Brazil last August in which thieves stole USD 65 million after tunnelling 200 metres into a bank in what police said was the country’s biggest bank robbery.
But from the spate of armed robberies which have been hitting the country in recent years and the degree of daring under which many of them were executed, we could surely be approaching international standards – if there are such rankings – especially if more efforts are not put in place to fight the growing menace.
From the level of sophistication of bank robbers, can we be certain that a history-breaking one is not in the works?
We are not suggesting that there could be at the moment, some people tunnelling towards an unsuspecting bank, but surely something has to be done and fast before these criminals’ actions reach unmanageable levels.
It is quite clear that our police force either lacks the sophistication to deal with the problem, or its overall upbringing has been such that it finds it hard to confront it.
We may also hazard a submission here that the police could be currently pre-occupied with the election campaigns. They always brag that they are ready and prepared to deal with anyone – real or perceived – who is bent on disrupting the elections and causing chaos.
So the criminals are using that diversionary laxity in the police force to mount their raids wherever and whenever they wish. In fact they appear to have succeeded in roaming freely in the underworld.
What we are saying is not based on wild imagination. A couple of weeks ago, a regional police commander was quoted by this paper as saying that his men were investigating an incident in which campaign posters for one party’s presidential candidate and his running mate were torn, and vowed to arrest the suspects and take them to court.
Aren’t the real criminals happy to see the police force tied down in such trivialities?
In addition, from the manner they are executed, inside hands could be assisting these robberies.
And that should be the point for reflection by the police upon which to concentrate.
The bank robbery from a CRDB bank branch in Dar es Salaam a few years ago was one such inside assisted robbery.
The other one was the last May’s robbery from an NBC bank branch in Moshi, whose location was just a stone-throw from the town’s central police station.
And a day preceding the Dar es Salaam forex shop heist, police killed a suspected gangster in a gunfight at Kawe, on the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.
The deceased happened to be a member of the Tanzania Peoples Defence Forces.
Now that has brought up more questions than answers, both for the wananchi and the country’s police force.
It shows that the trend, if it is at all, means a monumental task for our law enforcers.
|
