A CCTV footage has emerged of police officers assaulting students from the St. Elizabeth Ladies Hostel in Voi, Taita Taveta county on Wednesday, December 2.
This came after students from the Coast Institute of Technology (Voi Campus) staged protests on Tuesday, December 1 and engaged the police in running battles for close to four hours.
The students were lamenting over an increase in school fees by the institution, bedbugs in the hostels, poor infrastructure and demanded the institution heads to quit their posts.
The video shows police officers storming a hostel before proceeding beating the students with batons.
The officers poured water on the hostel's floor and ordered the girls to lie down as they continued to assault them.
The students are making futile attempts to escape; crawling on the wet floor with some of the officers canning them.
One of the students is seen trying to reach for a phone, an act that attracts more beatings.
The comrades are then ordered to crawl around the hostel before being told to walk away from the scene.
The Taita Taveta Police Commander Francis Sang denied his officers assaulted the students.
"Yesterday there was no confrontation, there was no fight. Our officers were just on patrol because these students were trying to regroup themselves, and we did not know their intentions.
"While our offices were going round they realized that there was nothing wrong. I do not know where these allegations are coming from. If anyone has a complaint they should come to the station and record a statement," he said.
Damning CCTV footage of Voi police assaulting students in their hostel.#TV47News pic.twitter.com/p89Z1i6YJv
— tv47 (@nftaIienfrens) December 3, 2020
