Alleged state security members yesterday evening abducted yet another opposition supporter, assaulted and left him for dead in Mandara surburb.
Owen Chari who is a member of the MDC is currently admitted at a local hospital in Harare.
Narrating his ordeal to 263Chat, Chari said he was picked in Tafara-Mabvuku close to his home at around 2000hours by five men with AK47s and driving a Toyota Fortuner.
“They asked me to lie down and I asked them why, and they said don’t ask why, lie down. They bundled me into the car. They told my kids to run and not to look back. They drove out of Mabvuku along Mabvuku drive.
“At Mabvuku turnoff, Mutare road, they turned to the left and took a dust road to the right which goes to Epworth. Just after the railway line, they asked me to disembark from the car. They started beating me. They said, tell us the person who was sponsoring you guys, the person who was giving you money to demonstrate and I told them there is nobody..,” Chari recounted.
He added that his abductors used a sjambok, gun brits and bare hands to torture him.
“As if this was not enough, they asked me to carry Zimbabwe with my head, so I had to put my head on the ground with my hands on my back and they were beating me with a sjambok, with logs, with the butt of the gun. The only guy who did not beat is the one who was in police uniform…they asked me where is your MP; Chidhakwa.
“…the other said I am going to shoot you, lie down. I lied down and prayed ready to die. He appeared pulling a trigger and his colleague refrained him saying, ‘don’t kill him’. I was in the face with an object I suspect is a log and I was bleeding,” Chari recounted.
Although Chari admitted to have participated in the protests, he denied any looting allegations levelled against him by the alleged security forces.
“From 2am I was wandering trying to figure where I was. I then went to my friends’ house and he took me,” said Chari.
The crackdown on opposition supporters has continued since last week and has forced some senior members of the MDC to go into hiding fearing for their lives.
