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Zanu PF activists attack MDC councillor

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MDC Alliance’s Harare ward 1 councillor, Tendai Katsaria, was reportedly attacked by suspected Zanu PF activists in Hopley area on Monday.

MDC Alliance’s Harare ward 1 councillor, Tendai Katsaria, was reportedly attacked by suspected Zanu PF activists in Hopley area on Monday.

BY OBEY MANAYITI

Katsaria, who sustained head injuries, claimed he was attacked by Zanu PF activists when he was in the company of Harare City department of works employees, who were seeking to find ways to regularise the residential stands in that area.

In Hopley and most parts of Harare South, residents haphazardly acquired residential stands on unserviced land mainly on the instructions of Zanu PF leaders who illegally declared the area a no-go for opposition activists.

“We were having a council programme in my ward. I am the local councillor, so we were having the department of works and others seeking to get ways to regularise housing stands so that people start to pay rates to council at Zone 1, Hopley,” Katsaria said.

“The council is also seeking to peg roads so that they are attended to urgently. At that meeting, some Zanu PF activists stormed the programme and started asking why I was part of the programme.

“I started to explain the mission, but they would not have any of it, claiming as an opposition councillor, I was not supposed to conduct meetings in the area because it is a Zanu PF territory.

“They started assaulting me with fists and when I managed to escape, I was stoned with a brick on my head.”

He said he reported the matter at Southlea Park Police Station and claimed one of the perpetrators had since been nabbed.

Katsaria described his attack as unjustifiable, claiming the perpetrators must face the full wrath of the law.

He said it was against the spirit of development to try and enforce hooliganism on council business.