Vusumuzi Dube
Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
A 33-year-old Beitbridge man ran amok on Wednesday evening and locked his wife and two children in a room before setting his rented Dulivhadzimu house on fire resulting in the death of his nine-month-old daughter.
The incident occured at the height of a domestic dispute.
The man, Gibson Chidzanga has since been charged with murder.
He was not asked to plead when he appeared before Miss Ania Chimweta at the Beitbridge Magistrate Courts yesterday.
Chidzanga was remanded in custody to 30 December.
Prosecuting, Mr Pithey Magumula said on 13 December, Chidzanga arrived at his rented house in Dulivhadzimu suburb around midnight.
He then stumbled on a text message on his wife’s cellphone which led to a misunderstanding between the two.
At the height of the fracas, he threatened to burn the house with his wife and two children inside.
After that he forced his family into one room and took a gas tank from the kitchen and lit it and fled from the scene.
The tank then burst into a huge fireball which spread across the house and his wife managed to escape with one child.
Efforts to rescue the nine-month-old child were fruitless as the fire raged on, resulting in the toddler being burnt to death.
A report was then made to the police resulting in Chidzanga’s arrest the following day.
In October last year a 48-year-old man allegedly axed his wife to death in Harare and committed suicide in Beitbridge after failing to skip the border to South Africa.
It was reported that on 27 September last year, Tinashe Ruzaya Paunosvisva of the Ushewokunze area in Harare killed his wife Ronah Masango with an axe while their two minor children watched.
After that, he escaped to Beitbridge en-route to South Africa and later committed suicide at Lutumba Business Centre, some 20km before Beitbridge Town along the Masvingo Road, after failing to jump the border.
The man’s body was found lying by the roadside at Lutumba Business Centre by a passer-by who informed the police. A search was done leading to the discovery of a suicide note in his pocket.
Paunosvisva wrote in the suicide note that had his wife listened to him, they could still be together.
@tupeyo
Online Reporter