Car vandals target Mak evening students

Students at Makerere University on evening programme have decried the rampant cases of vandalism of their vehicles by unscrupulous people.

The university has a police station within the campus, leaving the victims wondering how their properties are being vandalised.

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One of the affected students from the department of journalism and communication, who preferred anonymity, said thieves plucked off his two side mirrors last week.

“I was welcomed by empty side mirrors after my class had ended. The vice is making our life hard because instead of concentrating in class, our minds are preoccupied with fear of our cars being vandalised,” the student said.

Another student whose car lights were plucked off, wondered why the university does not have police patrols at night to oversee properties of students and lecturers.

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Students have resorted to parking their vehicles at the Central Teaching Facility 1 (CTF1), where the vice chancellor and other top university officials park their vehicles.

“The parking lot at the CTF1 has security surveillance and whenever we park there, our cars are not vandalised. It means I have to walk from there to School of Language where we usually have our lectures from,” another student said.

The university secretary, Mr Yusuf Kiranda, said the issue would be handled by the head of security.

“We have always acted immediately where theft cases are reported. Since this is a new case, we are going to ask our head of security to handle it,” Mr Kiranda said.

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Mr Cyrus Omara, the head of security, confirmed only cases at Mary Stuart Hall of residence and the western part of the institution, which he said have since reduced after deployment of security personnel in those areas.

“We had vandalism cases where properties of the students were being stolen by unscrupulous people accessing the university through the western gate. We permanently deployed here and we are no longer receiving such cases,” he said.

However, the situation seems to have resurfaced at the parking lot, opposite College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS) towards the university’s freedom square.

Mr Omoro said they had not received cases of vandalism at the college of CHUSS.

“The good thing is that the place has a 360 degree camera. We shall get the culprits if we get details when the incidents happened,” Mr Omara said.