Big Story: Car Loaded With Explosives Impounded In Kampala

Police in Kampala have started investigating circumstances under which a numberless vehicle traveled from the Ugandan border with Tanzania at Mutukula up to the city centre laden with explosives.

According to police spokesperson, Fred Enanga, the vehicle was found at the Kibuye roundabout on its way to the city on Sunday at around 4pm.

“The vehicle, a Toyota Premio without registration number plates was stopped by our officers for routine check prompting the occupant in the co-driver’s seat to quickly open the door and run away,” Enanga said.

“On checking the vehicle, it was found with two boxes of explosives that can be used in making of Improvised Explosive Devices.”

According to Enanga, the driver of the vehicle, Benard Chemutai was arrested and it was found out that the duo had smuggled the explosives from Mutukula, Kyotera.

The incident will raise questions on how the vehicle full of explosives was able to pass the border checkpoints into the country unnoticed.

Security will also try to establish circumstances under which a numberless vehicle carrying such dangerous weapons could move for a distance of over 220km from the border to the city centre without notice, despite the various snap checkpoints along the Kampala-Masaka Highway.

The incident is also a matter of concern since the country has in the past suffered at the hand of ADF rebels who planted IEDs killing scores and injuring others using locally available materials.

The police spokesperson however said investigations will help uncover the mystery around the vehicle.

“We shall widen our investigations to see where they had got the explosives and where they were taking them,” Enanga said.

The development comes on the backdrop of an incident in which man was arrested for making an Improvised Explosive Device(IED) that later “accidentally” exploded injuring him in Kampala.

The man, identified as Collins Mugabe, was a resident of Banda zone 2 , Nakawa Division in Kampala .

“Our teams were alerted by locals after one of the IEDs that Mugabe had manufactured went off when he mistakenly tampered with it,” police told journalists late last month.

According to police, when the locals alerted police of the explosion that went off after 9pm, security cordoned off the home and during the day, a thorough search was carried out at the home leading to the recovery of another homemade bomb as well as other bomb making materials.

Among the materials allegedly found in the house include jerricans of nitric acid, methanol, ethanol, potassium nitrate, several wires, notes and text books on bomb making.

Last week, Wasekeyi Ndahule, 39 ,a Congolese refugee was arrested after a handheld grenade exploded in his house in Nakulabye, a Kampala suburb.

The Congolese refugee who first denied being the owner of the grenade told security that it had been hurled towards him by an unknown person but evidence including a safety pin found in his house proved he owned the grenade.

Two passports, one for DRC and another for Burundi were also recovered from his house whereas further interrogations indicated the 39 year old had sneaked the grenade into the country from  North Kivu in Eastern DRC.

Story Credit: Nilepost