City businessman shot in crime wave

• Gunmen open fire on community security man at accident scene

A businessman is in hospital with bullet wounds after gangsters attacked him in Nairobi on Friday night.

Mr Ashit Sharma was admitted to the Aga Khan Hospital’s intensive care unit with injuries in the stomach.

Mr Sharma also works for the Operation Reduce Crime (ORC), a police-backed crime-fighting organisation formed by residents of the city’s Parklands area.

Police said the businessman had stopped at an accident scene on Forest Road and was standing outside his car when the gangsters drove by in two vehicles and opened fire on him.

According to police, the gangsters apparently recognised Mr Sharma’s security vehicle and panicked, thinking that there were police officers in the car, which is usually fitted with high aerials.

Immediately after the shooting, they snatched his gun and sped off. Police said Mr Sharma is licensed to carry a firearm.

ORC usually offers its vehicles to transport police officers during night patrols. At the time of the attack, Mr Sharma was not in the company of police officers.

He had just contacted police and, together with two motorists whose vehicles had collided, was waiting for the officers to arrive at the accident scene.

There has been an upsurge in gun crime in the recent past in Nairobi with prominent personalities thought to be targeted. Youth Affairs and Sports Permanent Secretary Kinuthia Murugu died last Thursday, three weeks after being shot by criminals.

In yet another shooting, a man survived with bullet wounds when a three-man gang raided Shade Guest House in the city’s South C Estate.

Nothing was taken from the guest house and attendants.

The victim had his stomach wounds treated at a nearby hospital and discharged.

Separately, an AK-47 assault rifle was surrendered to the chiefs’s camp in the city’s Kariokor area. The firearm, which had been hidden in a shack, was found by members of the public.

In Mombasa, families of two administration police officers who were shot dead by colleagues from the regular force have accused investigating officers of failing to conduct a comprehensive investigation.

According to the spokesman for the families, Mr Amana Mwajirani, none of the family members had been contacted by police officers to record statements. ‘‘We demand the immediate arrest of those who killed our brothers,” said Mr Mwajirani.