By SIMON MUNTEMBA
THE UPND has disowned seven unruly cadres who destroyed property and assaulted PF members at Chelstone police, but PF deputy media director, Edwin Lifwekelo, said that was not true.UPND Lusaka Province youth chairperson, Anderson Banda said the violent cadres were not his party members.But Mr Lifwekelo, took a swipe at Mr Banda describing him as an irresponsible leader who has failed to take responsibility and denounce violence.Mr Lifwekelo said the justification by Mr Banda showed that the UPND was condoning violence by its members and were choosing to ignore what is happening. “I think Anderson Banda is an irresponsible leader who tolerates violence by his members. Honestly how can he claim that those were community members or PF faction members when those guys are known UPND cadres? Why did some senior UPND officials go to negotiate for their release if they were not their members?“All I can tell you is that Banda is just politicking but that is not leadership, real leadership is to denounce violence regardless of who is involved,’ he said.Mr Lifwekelo said he expected the UPND leadership to denounce violence by its members and not justifying the barbaric act which had the potential to set the country on fire.On Thursday, Police deputy public relations officer Danny Mwale confirmed that the seven that were involved in the fracas at Chelstone Police Station had been charged with assault and malicious damage to property after they were arrested. The seven violent cadres last week were arrested after storming the Chelstone Police station to attack PF senior members including Chris Chiinda who had gone to offer solidarity to their party chairman for information and publicity, Raphael Nakacinda.But Mr Banda denied sanctioning any participation of its members in the reported fracas at the police station.Mr Banda said contrary to insinuations that the unruly cadres were UPND members, those were members of the community who were not happy with Mr Nakacinda’s utterances.He also claimed that preliminary investigations indicate that seven in the fracas at police station were PF faction members.“Those are community members and not UPND. It is not true that those are our members. In fact, that fight started within PF factions, they were fighting among themselves, that is the information that I have,” Mr Banda said.
