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Thupeyo Muleya – Beitbridge Bureau
Police in Beitbridge are treating the death of a tax driver as murder after his lacerated corpse was found on Friday along the Beitbridge to Bulawayo road.
Forty-two-year-old Morgan Gangata had been reported missing by his employer the day before.
The police officer commanding Beitbridge district, Chief Superintendent Tichaona Nyongo said the man’s body had injuries on the right lower leg, wounds behind the left knee, wounds on the left thigh and had bled through the mouth and nose. The man was found dead next to his work car, a Honda Fit which he used to drive as a taxi.
Chief Supt Nyongo said initially they had treated the case as that of a missing person until a villager from Malala found the body in the bush.
“The now deceased used to carry pupils from Dulivhadzimu to a local primary school and his employer got worried when he did not show up on Wednesday and he could not get through to him via his cellphone until Thursday,” said Chief Supt Nyongo.
“A missing person report was then made at the police on Thursday and on the following day, our team received information from an unknown about a Honda Fit that was abandoned in the middle of the road at the 311 km peg along Bulawayo-Beitbridge Highway near Naude Quarry, Beitbridge.
“A follow up was then made with the help of detectives and upon arriving at the scene they noticed that the vehicle was suspiciously parked just in the middle of the road facing Gwanda direction with all the doors closed but not locked and the key was in the ignition. The left rear passenger door had some blood stains.”
The owner of the vehicle was called and he identified the car and searches were conducted in the bush around the scene and nothing of interest was found.
The detectives tried again to call Gangata to no avail and they also checked at the hospital if he had been admitted but there were no positive results.
Chief Supt Nyongo said on Friday at around 10pm a villager from Malala discovered the man’s body in the bush about 50 metres away from the Beitbridge to Bulawayo Highway and reported to the police.
“Our team attended the scene and placed it on overnight guard until further checks were done the next morning,” said Chief Supt Nyongo.
“The now deceased’s body was found in a bushy area leaning against a small tree facing his clothes but bare footed and he had injuries on the right lower limb, wounds behind the left knee, wounds on the left thigh and had bled through the mouth and nose”.
He said they had picked some bloody stained clothes at the scene and the man was positively identified by his employer.
Gangata’s remains have since been taken to the local hospital for a post-mortem.
“We are now investigating a case of murder and appealing to anyone with information to contact the nearest police station,” said Chief Supt Nyongo.
He said in a related case they picked up a decomposed body of a person in the Shashe area on Sunday whom they believed could have died a month ago. Investigations into the matter, he said, were underway
Online Reporter