A manhunt is underway in Chikwawa for a group of circumcisers who allegedly wounded a 12-year-old boy whom they accused of revealing secrets of an initiation camp.
According to Chikwawa police spokesperson, Foster Benjamin, the incident happened on Monday evening at Mikadzu Village in the area of Traditional Authority Maseya in the district.
The boy is said to have undergone the rite of passage and graduated on Saturday, Benjamin said.
“After the graduation, which was spiced by music and dance, he is said to have mobilised his friends who mostly comprised of the uninitiated ones. He then began narrating to them the goings-on at the ‘simba’,” said Benjamin.
The freshly graduated initiate went on showing the uncircumcised friends a scar on his member where he got circumcised.
He further revealed that a traditional camp was nothing but a place full of myth where no honey is eaten despite a widely held belief.
Getting wind of this, apparently angered, a group of circumcisers went on a search for the boy.
They dragged him back into the old camp where they flogged him after tying him up, leaving him severely injured.
He was rushed to the district’s hospital after getting a referral letter from the police.
Meanwhile, police have embarked on a manhunt for the culprits on charges of unlawfully wounding.
