12 May 2014

Tutume police have recorded 19 cases of house breaking between January and April this year.

Tutume station commander, Superintendent Jerry Halahala said in an interview recently that despite their efforts to engage the community through crime prevention educational forums, cases of house breaking continued to rise.

Supt Halahala said most of the houses broken into, were those left unattended for a long time and valuables such as laptops, radios, televisions and other electronic appliances were stolen.

He said in order to lessen cases of house breaking, communities should work hand in hand with the police and should make use of neighborhood watch programmes.

“The community should always inform the police about suspicious persons they see in the neighborhood,” he said. Superintendent Halahala further said people should always leave their homesteads with someone to attend to and those who could afford security alarms should install them in their houses.

He also said people should keep receipts and other records of their valuables purchased for use as proof if the need could arise.

Meanwhile, he noted that the issue of illegal immigrants in his policing area continued to be a challenge. He said since the beginning of the ploughing season last year November to date, they deported 889 illegal immigrants.

Superintendent Halahala said those illegal immigrants were from Zimbabwe who came here in search of odd jobs such as ploughing, weeding and livestock herding.

He said the illegal immigrants ended up getting involved in criminal activities such as house breaking, rape, common theft and other offences.

He further said efforts by the police to combat issues of illegal immigrants are compromised by some members of the community who continue d to keep illegal immigrants in their homes and offer them employment. ENDS