Over 300 Evelyn Hone Students Arrested for Rioting
By Staff Reporter
POLICE in Lusaka have arrested 207 more students in the Evelyn Hone riot which happened last night about 23: 00 hours.
The students are protesting against increased tuition fees and poor maintenance of the school by the administration. The students also claim that the pass rate has fallen to unacceptable low levels.
“Imagine that out of more than 300 students, only 30 passed the last exams, this is clearly unacceptable, it reflects failure by management and the entire teaching staff, they have a lot of work to remedy this situation,” a second year student who sought anonymity said.
Police spokesperson Esther Mwaata Katongo in a statement said this brings the total number of those arrested to 333. Among the 207 arrested last night, 119 are male while 88 are female students.
Katongo said the students were repelled from going to the main road and later caused damage to the infrastructure at their school, particularly the institutional health centre and administration block.
“They further pulled down the wall fence that demarcates Evelyn Hone and NIPA, also the one that demarcates Evelyn Hone and ZICAS. We have information that some of the students from NIPA participated in the confusion while there was none from ZICAS,” said Katongo.
She said officers are still screening the students so as to establish the number of those coming from other institutions and all are detained in police custody.
“We wish to advise the students at Evelyn Hone, especially their Students Union to find amicable ways of addressing their grievances and the best approach would be to engage relevant authorities. As Police, we are not going to tolerate any lawlessness and those found outside the boundaries of what the Law provides for will be dealt with accordingly,” charged Katongo.
She said the best that students should do is to seek legal means of registering their grievances as opposed to causing anarchy.
