Museveni questions mental state of Police officers
Frank Semata 
The president of Uganda His Excellency Yoweri Museveni has strongly condemned the ugly behavior of a policeman who shot dead an Indian businessman yesterday afternoon on Raja chambers at Parliamentary avenue.
The president through his official twitter handle sent out a condolence message to the Indian community in Uganda and the family of the deceased, Mr. Uttam Bhandari.
“Condolences on the death of one of our Indian People, Mr. Uttam Bhandari, killed by a Police Constable by the names of Wabwire Ivan.” He said.
He noted however that such an occurrence can easily be traced, “All these mistakes are easily traceable.”
The president raised six (6) pertinent issues that he thinks would have come up which among others the mental state of the assailant who currently is on the run including;
- How did an off-duty Police man, access a gun?
- Did he walk away from his guard post without permission with a gun to commit crime?
- How are the guns stored in the Police?
- Is there no security at the site where the victim was?
- Why did that local security allow an armed person into the building who had no guard business there? Then, there is the question of the mental state of this Policeman.
- Did he have a history of mental instability? If he had, why hadn’t the Police leadership noticed and acted appropriately?
The answers to these questions may help us to plug the gaps in the security system.
Police in their statement say the assailant had been diagnosed with a mental problem 6 years ago.
“Police in CPS Kampala are continuing with the investigation of murder by shooting that happened at Rajja Chambers along Parliamentary Avenue in Kampala.
The Detectives who visited the scene on 12 May 23, recovered 13 cartridges from the scene.
They have retrieved the CCTV footages from the room which clearly shows how the suspect 67029 PC Wabwire Ivan shot the victim Uttam Bhandari. The footage also shows what transpired at the crime scene before the shooting incident, this will be very useful evidence during trial.
The suspect is still on the run but a team has been setup to track him.
Due to the suspect's medical conditions, Police management at CPS Kampala had taken a decision about six (6) years ago NOT TO ARM the suspect with a gun and they have been deploying him in beats that doesn't require him to be armed. His current deployment was at CCTV monitoring center.
Due to limited accommodation, the suspect was sharing a house with a fellow police officer, on 12 May 23 his housemate had worked at night, and didn't return the gun to the armoury instead he went with it to their house and shortly, he got a call that his child was sick, he rushed to go and check on the child leaving the gun behind.
The suspect Wabwire took that advantage, got the gun and went and misused it by shooting Uttam.
His roommate who signed for the gun PC Mulambo Steven has been arrested and detained at Kireka.”
