HUMAN rights advocates have demanded that due to circumstances surrounding cases of abductions, torture and killings, the police should not handle such cases as they are in large measure among the suspects.

Onesmo Ole Ngurumwa, the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC) coordinator, said at a training event on the lakeside city of Mwanza yesterday that a special investigation committee needed to be formed by the presidency “to uncover the root causes of these incidents.”

Appeals for investigation of escalating incidents of kidnappings, torture and killings across the country were on the rise as the public reels from a string of incident, one of them recounted recently and extensively involving the police.

At the human rights monitoring, documentation, reporting, and risk management training for its coordinators and field staff, he said that from 2016 to 2024 over 200 people have been reported missing or kidnapped under various circumstances.

He pointed at the case of ex-UDSM student Abdul Nondo and the recent incident involving opposition activist Edgar Mwakabela, also known as Sativa, where those narrating kidnappings or abductions directly implicated state security agencies.

Those cases were not investigated by relevant authorities, the noted activist stated, insisting that thorough investigation is needed for all incidents over the past decade to ensure all suspected individuals are brought to justice, thus preventing further occurrences.

He all the same asserted that the police need to conduct comprehensive investigations in relation to child abductions and other kidnappings and prosecute those responsible, in a bid to ensure citizens' safety.

Law enforcement agencies including the police have to perform their duties professionally and reject any initiatives that undermine their capacity to investigate law violations like those they are now such incidents.

Meanwhile, Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG) has given notice that it is embarking on a field investigation on cases of abduction, torture and killings said to be rife in the country.

Judge (rtd) Mathew Mwaimu, the commission chairman, made this announcement here yesterday, a decision following an appeal by the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDC) to President Samia Suluhu Hassan to establish a high powered probe team on matter.

He said the commission has received report of such cases from different sources, urging that people with more information on the incidents to avail the same to the governance outfit.

 There are lots of reports on abductions, torture and even killings, referring to such incidents happening ostensibly in the hands of law organs, occasioning the need to conduct investigations as there are clear breaches of human rights, he explained.

  He said the commission had received reports from different stakeholders and it was preparing to work on the matter. Various allegations relate to the police and other law enforcers whereas such acts constitute gross violations of human rights and are not acceptable in any society based on the rule of law, he stated.

 A string of cases of abductions, torture and killing across the country have of late been reported, illustrated by the case of one Edgar Mwakabela who went missing on June 23, and later found alive and well within Katavi National Park.

 Mwakabela reportedly said he was first taken into the Oysterbay Police workshop, before leaving with his kidnappers to Arusha (600km away) and then to Katavi, a further 1400 km), a shocking revelation when it went viral.

 In the first video that confirmed he was alive, Edgar is seen sitting in the dust, complaining that his head hurts. “Please help me, my head hurts, my legs are swollen,” Edgar can be heard pleading with the people who found him.

 Later when he was taken to hospital, Mwakabela aired more details about his kidnapping ordeal saying that he was shot in the head, but by the stroke of luck, the bullet hit his jaw.

 “I was kidnapped on Sunday at seven in the evening and taken to Oysterbay Police Station. I know the Oysterbay station does not have my records, but they took me to the workshop at the Oysterbay Station where I stayed from eight o’clock until 5:20 in the morning,” he elaborated.

 He was subsequently left in the middle of nowhere within Katavi National Park, a corridor where all sorts of wild animals often pass, meanwhile as the motive for his kidnapping remains unclear.

Some social media pundits have associated it with his contributions during the traders’ strike in the central business district and elsewhere in the country, “and the tension he had with some pro-government influencers,” in his own words.

 Several people have come forward to demand accountability for the kidnapping especially following the release of details that police premises were used in the whole episode of abduction.

 Boniface Jacob, a former opposition mayor for Ubungo, said that he was similarly taken to the same workshop following the 2020 election, explaining that the workshop is not a place that anyone can access.

It is protected by armed police as it has vehicles being held by the traffic police, some of them being retained for court evidence, stated, arguing for the resignation of Home Affairs minister Hamad Yusuf Masauni and IGP Camillus Wambura in the wake of this detailed incident.

 The Legal and Human Rights Center released a statement condemning the incident, and called for an investigation, while demanding the protection of Mwakabela until his abductors are apprehended.

 Children abduction is an offence of wrongfully retaining, detaining or concealing a child or baby, defined as taking away a person by persuasion, by fraud, open force or violence.

Sophia Donald, the THRDC coordinator for the Lake Zone, highlighted an increase in human rights violations in the zone, including abductions and killings of people with albinism, apart from violence against women.

 The coalition collaborates with various institutions to provide legal aid and community-based solutions for such incidents where possible, in addition to enhancing members' capabilities to monitor and address human rights violations to overcome operational challenges.

THRDC expects to host a stakeholders’ conference on the situation after the training session ends, she added.