Protests ensued on Sunday afternoon in Mityana Municipality, when supporters of bedridden area legislator Francis Zaake, received false news that he had passed on.
Mr Zaake is currently receiving treatment at Rubaga hospital in Kampala, following his arrest together with fellow MPs and 29 others in Arua on Monday August 13 by security organs.
Police said they were arrested to aid investigations into the incident in Arua municipality, when supporters of newly elected area MP Kassiano Wadri allegedly pelted stones onto President Yoweri Museveni’s convoy, destroying a hind glass of one of his vehicles.
Museveni was in the area to solicit votes for his party candidate Ms Nusura Tiperu, and the scuffle led to the death of MP Kyagulanyi’s driver, Yasin Kawuma.
Social media was Sunday morning awash with information that the ailing legislator was dead which this website can authoritatively confirm is false.
However, on receiving the ‘news’, the rowdy supporters took to the streets and set car tyres, furniture ablaze blocking a number of roads and burning several mobile money points.
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The closed roads include station road, Buswabulongo-Namutamba road near MP Zaake’s residence and Wabigalo along Mityana Kampala road.
According to Dan Kaweesa, a journalist working with Sun FM Mityana, police under the command of the District Police Commander, John Bosco Sserunjogi, has arrested several protestors but the situation remains tense as demonstrators continue flocking the cleared areas.
He says most shops in the town have been closed and eating as well as mobile money points along Market Street and Buswabulongo, have been destroyed.
“Even shops according to some traders I have talked to, have been destroyed with unknown sums of money reportedly stolen,” Mr Kaweesa told SoftPower News in an interview.
Wamala region Police Spokesperson Nobert Ochom, had by the time of this publication objected to making a statement on the situation.
This is not an isolated incident as the country witnessed protests by residents in Kamwokya, a Kampala suburb, a couple of days ago, demanding immediate and unconditional release of the detained Kyadondo East MP, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu.
