From afar it seemed like an accident. One involving a boda boda on fire. As I drove closer to the scene the mood got tenser. The shocked faces that stood by the road side raised my anxiety. I slowed down and peeped through my window. My eyes caught sight of the most horrible scenario. A man set ablaze lay in the middle of the road.
I was in disbelief. My body shivered as an evidently angry fellow, threw a log at the already burning corpse with the rest of the crew cheering him on. It later turned out that the dead man was one of the notorious thieves in the neigbourhood.
The crowd had caught him after a failed mission, beat him up and set him on fire. This happened along Kinawataka Road, a Kampala suburb on Monday evening at around 10.30pm. I had read about such incidents but had never experienced it first-hand. Seeing a body burn as fellow human beings watch, hit and laugh about is something that still gives me goose bumps to date.
I remembered all the times I had been robbed and the many times I have watched them torment every living human being on earth and the many wishes I made for God to punish them as much as the people they hurt on a daily and I could not help but wonder as to why I felt sorry for this fellow who belonged to the same category of tormentors and had just got served! I guess it is the shock of watching a body burn to ashes. The imagination of how human beings can turn to monsters and get excited over watching another die. Or it could be the reality about mob justice that stared at me in the face.
While I am all for punishment to the wrongdoers, I do not think it is right for people to take power into their hands. One might be quick to argue that some of these culprits never get what they deserve when subjected to the law, but again, isn’t it better than committing murder in the most insensitive way?
I found this unfair. I am still in shock and I hope that one day, human kind will realise that subjecting another to death may not be the best solution since the guilt might commit one to an entire restless life.
But I hope that thieves learn to pick lessons because when the 40 days run out, they may never know how it will end for them and their probably innocent families, just like this fellow who got burnt to ashes.
