Hardly two weeks after an army bodyguard killed his boss the State Minister for Labour (Rtd) Col. Charles Okello Macodwogo Engola, commonly known as Charles Okello-Engola , a policeman has this afternoon shot and killed an Indian money lender at Raja Chambers along Parliamentary Avenue in Kampala.
Police has since identified the criminal policeman as No.67029 Police Constable (PC) Ivan Wabwire. The dead businessman has been identified as Uttam Bhandari, an Indian national and the Director at TFS Financial Services which is a popular money lending company among Members of Parliament.
“The client who is also a police officer called PC Ivan Wabwire first came yesterday (Thursday) and met the director of TFS financial services to verify how much he owed the company,” Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson, Patrick Onyango explained that the dangerous policeman who is now wanted for murder as servicing two loans he acquired since 2020.
The first loan was coded (deducted directly from his salary) while the second one was not.
“He could just come and pay whenever he got the money for the second loan. They calculated and told him he owed the company Shs2, 130,000. Yesterday, he said the bank where they are paying his salary from wanted the calculations so that they can offset all the loan and see how they could progress with him. He had returned today (Thursday) for further verification,” Mr Onyango stated .
When he was told the amount, he got incensed and reportedly started arguing, dismissing the figure claiming that it was inflated. “One of the workers who was inside said the officer first shot at the CCTV cameras inside the office. Everybody who was inside took off. We still don’t know what happened thereafter. We have called our CCTV team to come and retrieve the footage and analyse to see what happened,” Mr Onyango said.
PC Wabwire who is on the run is said to have fled the crime scene on a boda boda which dropped him at the Central Police Station in Kampala where he dumped the Ak 47 killer gun and fled. It is not yet known why he was not arrested while at the CPC for his hurried actions .
Buty Police has vowed to look for this killer gunman and bring him to face the law. “Uganda is very small when you have committed a crime. He will be got at any time. It’s very unfortunate that an officer of that caliber would resort to shooting instead of resolving the matter amicably,” Onyango regretted to note .
Security experts have once again questioned the behaviour of armed personnel life styles that lead them to contract loans that they can not afford to pay due to their merger salaries . ” Money lenders should also look at the financial capabilities of these men in uniform before they give them loans which stress them to the pointing turning their guns to the very same people they are supposed to protect at all times ,” a security expert who declined to be named stated,
