A man who shot and killed an Indian money lender near Uganda’s Parliament has been identified as a police officer, the law and order agency has confirmed.
The afternoon shooting at Raja Chambers involved Uttam Bandari, a money lender, and his client, Kampala Metropolitan Police (KMP) Spokesperson Patrick Onyango told reporters.
Onyango said the client had come to verify his loan and interest amount and that available information indicated that the officer had met the director or manager of TFS Financial Services trying to get the calculation of his loan.
The police officer had two loans he has been servicing since 2020, one coded and deducted directly from his salary, and the second not, meaning that whenever he found money he would come and pay part of it.
On Thursday, May 11, 2023, Wabwire had come to the lender seeking a statement detailing his loans since his bank had wanted to offset the loan and discuss the way forward for its client. The calculation arrived at a figure of about Shs2.13m.
But on Friday, May 12, 2023, Wabwire returned and asked, again, to know how much the bank needed from him. After the manager told him it was still Shs2.13m, he started arguing and quarrelling and insisted that he could not believe that was the amount he was supposed to pay.
The police publicist also quoted one of the eye witnesses, a female worker who was inside the hall at the time of the shooting, as saying that PC Wabwire shot at the CCTV cameras, prompting all those who were in to scamper for dear lives.
“So, we still don’t know what happened there. We have called our CCTV team to come and try to retrieve the CCTV footage and analyze and see what exactly happened.”
He went on to say that the police officer was still on the run but assured him that “Uganda is very small when you have committed a crime. Anytime he will be got.”