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Two arrested over Dodoma robberies
2005-09-26 08:45:19
By Privatus Lipili, PST, Dodoma
Two people have been arrested in connection with two robberies that took place in Dodoma last week, police said yesterday.
The regional police chief, Wolfgang Gumbu, named one of the suspects as 34-year-old Francis Alex Shio, a secondhand clothes dealer at Kiboroloni market in Moshi.
However, Gumbu refused to name the second suspect on the grounds that revealing his identity would interfere with investigations into the incidents.
He said the unnamed suspect had been linked to the September 19 robbery at a mobile phone shop on Dodoma’s Sixth Avenue where three gangsters made away with cash and mobile phones whose value was not immediately known after shooting dead the shop attendant, Shaaban Kalonga, 30.
Shio was arrested in connecting with September 21 incident in which armed robbers grabbed about 9m/- belonging to the Diocese of Central Tanganyika (DCT) of the Catholic Church.
The money had just been withdrawn from the CRDB Bank Dodoma Branch when the gangsters struck. One person was shot and injured in the incident.
Police, acting on a tip, arrested Shio after stopping a bus travelling to Dar es Salaam from Dodoma at a checkpoint at Mbande Village.
Gumbu said the suspect had boarded the Super Najmunisa Express bus with the registration number T 776 ACK on the outskirts of Dodoma Municipality.
Preliminary investigations had revealed that Shio and his accomplices had earlier fled from the municipality in a Toyota Carina car with the fake registration number T 260 ABV. Police later established that the number was issued to a lorry whose owner was based in Shinyanga.
The suspect was found with 600,000/- thought to be part of the money lost when the robbers attacked DCT employees on their way from the bank.
Gumbu said police were also questioning three DCT workers in connection with the robbery. He named them as a driver, Joshua Nyandu, 40, cashier Samson Lusanho, 35, and Mika Baltoni, 30, who is a nurse with Mvumi Hospital which is operated by DCT.
Gumbu said police were working to establish whether the two robberies were linked and asked Dodoma residents not to panic, adding that police were in full control of the situation.
He said members of the public should not hesitate to provide information which could help police curb crime in the municipality and other parts of the region.
In another development, police in Dodoma arrested a woman who allegedly stole a two-year-old child in Dar es Salaam where she was working as a housemaid.
Gumbu said the woman would be taken back to Dar es Salaam to face charges brought against her.
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