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Nyandarua County Commissioner Boaz Cherutich has ordered a probe into the alleged assault of a widow by forest guards in Ndaragwa on Wednesday.
Nancy Wairimu, 50, is admitted to Nakuru Provincial General Hospital in critical condition.
Forest guards are reported to have rained kicks and blows on her. They also hit her with a gun butt at Huruma when they went to recover firewood collected from Ndaragwa forest.
Cherutich wants an inquest file is opened immediately for the law to take its cause.
“We are not going to condone rogue officers who break the law,” he said
Wairimu and other women were attending a meeting convened by Ndaragwa Central MCA Mwangi Maitai when they got reports that forest guards were at their homes.
They left the meeting to find out what was going on. When Wairimu got home she found the guards taking away her firewood.
She asked them why they were taking the firewood yet she had nothing with which to cook for her children.
Witnesses said she said it would be better for the guards to kill her instead of taking the firewood.
The guards only identified as Abdi, Tirop and Sergeant are said to have kicked her to the ground and stepped on her with their boots.
“Abdi hit her on the stomach and chest with the bottom of the gun, while Tirop took a huge stick and hit her on the head,” a witness said
Wairimu lost consciousness and she was thrown in the back of a pick-up and driven to Ndaragwa police station.
A senior police officer told the Star said it was wrong for the male guards to molest and arrest Wairimu. He said even male police officer do not arrest women as that is done by female officers.
The guards were told to take Wairimu to Ndaragwa health centre. She was transferred to Nyahururu Referral Hospital and later moved Nakuru Provincial General Hospital for specialised treatment.
Wairimu’s daughter Jacinta Muthoni told the Star in Nakuru, an X-ray showed her right breast, which was hit with a gun butt, was badly injured.
She accused medics at Nyahururu Referral Hospital of conspiring to cover-up the incident.
Speaking to the Star on the phone, Muthoni said the guards dumped her mum at the hospital after speaking with the medics.
Muthoni claimed in Nyahuru her mother were injected with sedatives as the medics said she was psychotic and needed to be taken to a mental facility at Gilgil.
The referral note to Nakuru indicated that Wairimu was assaulted by unknown people and taken to hospital by unknown people.
Contacted for comment, Nyandarua North police boss Timon Odingo declined to speak when the Star.
Cherutich said the reports he got is that the rangers took Wairimu to Ndaragwa police station and when told to take her to the hospital since she was bleeding profusely.
However, they were reluctant and the deputy OCS took it upon herself. It is not clear at what point Wairimu was handed back to the rangers who dumped her at the Nyahururu hospital.
Cherutich said he has directed that the rangers record statements as the inquest seeking to ascertain the truth starts. Wairimu will also be required to record her statement.
Women who spoke to the Star said they need the government to protect them from the rogue guards who are even threatening them with death.
They accused the guards of selling wood including cedar trees to traders who go to the forest with lorries and pick-ups.
The women said it is unfair because “they want to kill us for collecting dead wood”.
“Young male officers should not be allowed to beat old women as they may kill them. Worst of all they did not find her in the forest, they attacked her at her home”, a woman said.
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