By Atwakiire Micheal
Rukungiri: Grief and fear engulfed residents of Bwambara village in Bwambara Sub County, Rukungiri District on July 31st 2019 when a one Adonia Bamanyisa aged 77 years was allegedly locked in one of the rooms in his own house by his wife and burnt to death.
Kigezi Regional Police Spokesman Elly Maate has confirmed the incident and identified the alleged suspect as Keloy Bamanyisa who is currently under Police custody.
Maate said, the two had a long standing family feud that caused a fight between them at around 2300 hours and the man is reported to have fled into one of the rooms.
“As children slept, they heard the deceased fighting with the suspect and she was throwing plates at him. The deceased ran for safety to the bedroom and locked himself inside,” said Maate.
Keloy allegedly followed him, but could not get access to him since the door was locked. She later, according to Maate, picked a matchbox with old newspapers and pushed the fire under the door.
“Inside the room was a generator which had petrol and thus caught fire which spread, burning Bamanyisa. The nearby police station at Bwambala was notified and they rushed to the scene, arrested Keloy and took the body to Mbarara referral hospital for postmortem.”
Eye witnesses; the grandsons of the late Bamanyisa , Atwine Dan and Kimbere Nathan who lived with the couple in the house narrated that on hearing the scuffle in the house , they woke up and found the old man already locked up in the room and persuaded their grandmother to stop banging the door but she threatened them .
They also confirmed that the woman lit a fire on a newspaper and tossed it under the locked door into the room where the old man was, and unfortunately inside the room was a generator with petrol which immediately caught fire causing unbearable fire balls.
The frightened grandchildren ran to the nearby Bwambara Police Station where they reported the matter and Police rushed to the scene, but it was too late to save the situation.
Police, however, picked some exhibits and which they took along with the body to make a postmortem report.
The case of murder by arson was registered at Rukungiri Police Station under reference number CRB 833/2019 to help in further investigation.
