A fifteen-year-old child returning from a shebeen after midnight was shot and killed on Sunday morning by a policeman.

A 40-year-old police inspector, attached to Crime Prevention at the Tshilwavhusiku Police station, has been arrested on a charge of murder.

The child, Ndivhuwo Maeba, from Tshikwarani village, was a Grade 10 student at the Kutama High School. He was killed in the early hours of Sunday, 11 December, while he was returning from a local shebeen, together with a group of other teenagers. The group, including Ndivhuwo, was escourting the policeman’s 15-year-old daughter back home from the shebeen.

A media release from the SAPS communication services in Thohoyandou gives the deceased’s age as 17. According to the SAPS, the inspector heard a noise outside his yard and went out to check what was going on. The SAPS statement alleges that the policeman found four boys quarrelling with his teenage daughter. It is alleged that the suspect then ordered the boys to leave his daughter alone and fired “warning shots”. The deceased died instantly from a bullet wound to his head.

The police inspector was arrested and his service pistol was confiscated. He was to remain in custody until he could be brought to court.

In an interview this week, friends who were with Ndivhuwo on the fatal night gave an entirely different account of the events leading to the tragic killing of the 15-year-old by the police inspector.

They denied the allegation of a quarrel at the inspector’s home. They said that at the she-been the girl received unwanted attention from the suspect’s younger brother, who allegedly tried to pass her off to a friend who was buying him liquor. The group of teenagers then decided to leave and to see her home safely. The suspect’s brother allegedly followed them and informed the suspect by cellphone that there was a big fight at the shebeen over his daughter. Close to her parental home, her father arrived in a car and instructed her to go to the house, while he held a brief conversation with his younger brother, a distance away from the group. The boys remained standing, expecting the father to come and discuss the events of the evening with them. They then heard the vehicle’s engine and saw the lights directed towards them.

“All of a sudden, he just started shooting at us. He must have fired at least eight shots in our direction, for no reason at all. We all ran away in different directions,” said one of the boys. He said they later saw how the policeman and his brother went and picked up Ndivhuwo and put him in the policeman’s car.

“At first we thought they were taking him to the clinic for treatment, but he was already dead then.”

Ndivhuwo’s grief-stricken parents did not want to comment. His father had to return from his work in Gauteng. He was speechless.

A member of the family, Mr Lamson Maeba, said they had not yet been informed when the suspect was going to appear before the court. He said Ndivhuwo was not a troublemaker and he was shocked to hear that the boy had been killed by a policeman.

Upon being questioned about what action was being taken against the shebeen for entertaining underaged children until past midnight and allowing them to use liquor on the premises, Superintendent Ailwei Mushawanamadi of the SAPS’s Vhembe Communication Services said that no action can be taken unless the owner is caught red-handed selling liquor to the children.