IPOA launches probe over police brutality on University of Nairobi students

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) says it has dispatched what it calls its Rapid Response Unit to investigate police assault on University of Nairobi (UoN) students, inviting victims to help the body confirm the genuineness of video clip circulating on social media showing police beating students inside lecture halls and hostels.

It all started as protests by a section of UoN students demanding the release of former student leader and now Embakasi East MP, Babu Owino, with the ensuing chase by anti-riot police allegedly saw the officers storm the university premises in unrestrained aggression.

According to victims who spoke to the Citizen Digital but requested anonymity, some students were subjected to demeaning punishment including being frog-marched, walking in a file while holding each other’s shoulder or receiving corporal beating.

“They even sexually assaulted female students and if we will be called in court we have videos and pictures to prove that,” said a student.

Thursday’s protests were prompted by the release and re-arrest of Owino the former chair of the university’s students body. The fiery MP, who is not new to controversy, had been arrested for insulting the president.