Fourteen Polytechnic students that Police in Blantyre arrested on Friday evening have spent the weekend in custody after police authorities refused to grant them bail citing orders from above as one of the reasons.
The students were arrested for allegedly jumping over the college fence and going towards Masauko Chipembere Highway for demonstrations, a claim the Polytechnic Students Union (PSU) leadership has described as “another blue lie from the police service”.
In an interview yesterday, Polytechnic Students Union (PSU) President, Frank Msiska, said the union’s efforts to free nine male and five female students have met strong resistance from Blantyre Police Station authorities who reportedly told the union that the matter is beyond the station’s mandate.
“When we went there on Friday, they told us that they [the students] could not be released because it was in the night. And the following day which is yesterday [Saturday] we were there the whole day where to our surprise were told that they did not have powers to release the arrested students because this is a national issue and they could only be released by the court.
“We then hired a lawyer who compiled all relevant documents and he told us they will be doing everything to ensure that our colleagues are released and right now I am at the police station,” Msiska said.
He accused the police of going around the college campus to incite violence saying the arrested students were doing their normal business at the time of their arrests.
“Some of them were going to buy their meals, some were coming from the shopping mall and some were at the place where we had assembled and they were removing the public address system which we were using for the general assembly and others were doing their several businesses but police in their wisdom decided to arrest them. These are just innocent students and their arrests are quite unfair,” he said.
Southern Region Police spokesperson, James Kadadzera, said the issue of bail application is for the students not police.
Kadadzera, however, said the students are expected to appear in court today to answer charges of conduct likely to cause breach of peace.
On Friday, the last day of the academic year, the police officers from Police Mobile Service (PMS) B Company and Blantyre Police Station spent the whole day around the Polytechnic main campus acting on rumours that the students planned to demonstrate over University of Malawi fees hike.
Last week, Police in Zomba also arrested over Chancellor College students including students’ union leaders for staging demonstrations which resulted into the blocking of the road to Machinga.
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