A police officer overseeing the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination center was arrested yesterday after fleeing.
According to a police statement, the officer, a police constable, left his station at Koiban Secondary School around 2 pm. For conducting illegal raids in the Kimngoror area of Nandi County.
The officer assigned to the Kamungei police outpost had allegedly gone to a house a kilometer away to conduct an operation to target illicit liquor makers.
In what was later determined to be an unannounced raid, the police constable started ransacking the premises.
The owner of the princely state created a ruckus objecting to the action of the uninvited officer.
The ensuing scuffle caught the attention of curious residents who arrived at the campus. Enraged by the officer’s raid on his neighbor’s property, they surrounded him and threatened to beat him up.
Before being caught for processing, the officer was rescued by the local area chief, who informed the Chepterwai Police Post about the dramatic turn of events.
When questioned, the officer failed to give any credible reason for leaving the center or who ordered him to carry out the sting.
“OCS Chapterwai police station reached the spot and on questioning, the officer could not give any concrete answer as to why he had left the examination center and who had handed him over the handling of illicit liquor,” the statement said.
As a result, his pistol has been confiscated. The matter has been handed over to the Nandi County Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) for further investigation.
The officer’s name is added to the list of men in uniform arrested during the KCPE and KCPE national examinations. On March 7, several police officers were caught and their phones confiscated after allegedly taking photographs of exam papers.
Notably, the Ministry of Education has reported several instances of malpractices during the current KCSE exam. Cabinet Secretary for Education Prof. George Magoha has pardoned two candidates who tried to enter the examination hall using their phones.
However, the CS mentioned that measures have been taken to tackle cheating in national examinations.
