Ntambudzeni Netshifhefhe and his friend, Avhatondwi Madzivhandila, will always regret the day they were in the vicinity of a bank in Thohoyandou.

They were paraded as hardened criminals before a crowd of curious onlookers by the police. The incident happened at a busy complex next to Standard Bank at Mvusuludzo.

Netshifhefhe (40) of Shayandima and his friend Avhatondwi Madzivhandila (28) of Itsani, who are well-known carpenters, were from work at Vhufuli in the company of a client, a traffic officer at about 15:00 last Friday, who had come to withdraw some money for them at the local bank. “We were looking forward to a good late Friday chill-out after a hard day’s work when all hell broke loose,” they said.

“Our client, a certain Rammbuda, had gone to a nearby chain store, leaving us in a parked car next to the bank,” said Netshifhefhe. He said they were talking to friends and smoking some cigarettes, waiting for their client to come back. “She was taking too long to come back and we decided to do some window shopping at a nearby furniture shop,” said Netshifhefhe. On getting out of the furniture shop, they were surprised by a contingent of police who pointed guns at them and herded them to the corner of the shop.

“We were very surprised, as we had done nothing wrong and out of the blue they started assaulting us, alleging that we were robbers,” said Madzivhandila. He said they tried to reason with the officers, telling them that they were waiting for their client and were from work. “This did not make sense to them, even though we showed them our bag containing our receipt book and our other belongings.” He said they were searched and nothing was found, but still they were handcuffed to a chain at the corner of the bank and later put to the back of the police van.

Madzivhandila said he was hit on the head with the butt of a gun and nearly lost consciousness. He said what further aggravated their frustration was the fact that they were not taken to the charge office, but were released without being charged.

“We were humiliated, our dignity has been compromised and they did not have the decency to apologize for their actions,” said Netshifhefhe. “The police are the keepers of peace and we look to them for protection. What they did to us was uncalled for and they deserve to be punished.” Netshifhefhe said police acted very unprofessionally by abusing them in front of their clients. “We are well known around here and some of our clients were there to watch us being cuffed to a chain at the bank and some onlookers were even laughing at us. They will never trust us again; the whole scenario portrayed us as hardened criminals and everywhere we go fingers are pointed at us and we are now reduced to laughing stock.”