Police have arrested one man captured on video in Zanu PF regalia while firing live bullets into the air.
Police spokesperson Charity Charamba said that they have since launched a manhunt for his other accomplices.
Their video has gone viral on social media in a development that has raised fears of an escalation of violence ahead of the crunch July 30 elections.
The video show the thug shouting: “Harare massive, Hatfield massive, nyika tatora, ndivo vanhu vataifamba navo ava, these people used to beat up people. Chibaba,” he says pointing to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s picture on his T-shirt, before he fires a gun into the air and his colleagues briefly run away before coming back.
Charamba said: “We have arrested one individual who is helping us with investigations and upon the completion of the investigations we will be able to identify whether he is a bona fide Zanu PF member or not.”
She was, however, quick to dismiss allegations that the youths belong to Zanu PF on account of the ruling party regalia they are donning on the video.
Charamba said: “There is no way they could have done that so openly when the president (Mnangagwa) has been on record preaching peace.
“I doubt that the youths are Zanu PF members because we have had several cases of people who abuse political party paraphernalia to just get attention but we want to warn members of the public and political activists to desist from such criminal behaviour because we will not hesitate to arrest them regardless of who they are in society,” she said.
Charamba said the country’s law enforcement agents, they will not tolerate elements that disturb other people’s peace before, during and after the July 30 elections.
“It is clear from the video that the people are smoking something illegal in public and we are coming down on them because again, that is criminal,” she said.
On its part, the Zanu PF youth league in Harare province is also sweating over the youth’s identity.
Zanu PF youth league chairperson for Harare, Godwin Gomwe, said that his executive was still investigating the matter in a bid to identify the culprit.
“I am still in the process of gathering information to establish who that person is, to find out if he is a bona fide member of our party and that if he is he a member of this province or which district in the province does he hail from,” Gomwe said, adding he suspected that ruling party rivals were behind the damaging video.
“This is election period and anything is possible. People can put on our regalia just to paint us black, so that is why we are calling for the person’s arrest whether he is one of us or is not. We have listened to the president’s call for peaceful coexistence and anyone who does anything that threatens peace is certainly not one of us,” said Gomwe.
This comes as the man in the video has been identified on social media as Trevor J Kudenga.
MDC Alliance presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa condemned the video.
“Such crimes and criminals are being documented. We will leave no stone unturned in our investigations. Criminals deserve nothing other than jail time,” Chamisa posted on his Facebook Page.