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Nomore Wada Rusape Correspondent
DARING cattle thieves last week stole two cows from Zinhanga Village under Chief Nyashanu, Dorowa, which they slaughtered before deboning the meat and making good their escape. One villager, Mr Paul Munjodzi Mafoko, told The Herald that he could not believe his eyes when he discovered that his cow, which had only calved on Thursday, had been slaughtered leaving the four-day-old calf alone.

“I woke up early with the intention of loading some cattle onto my truck, as I wanted to go to Koala abattoir. It was then that I stumbled on the skeletal remains of my cow close to the kraal,” he said.

Mr Mafoko alerted his neighbours to the crime but before they could gather around, a boy from the same village announced that he had seen another slaughtered beast, just a distance from Mr Mafoko’s homestead. The owner of the cow has since been identified as Mr Jaison Zinhanga.

Manicaland deputy police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Luxson Chananda confirmed the case saying ZRP Dorowa was carrying out investigations so they could have full details on what really transpired after the conclusion of the investigations.

The thieves reportedly used elastic to gag the cows from making noise during slaughter and used big knives for slaughtering as evidenced by two knives left at the scene. “These thieves are smart and from the look of things they planned very well for this, look at these new big knives left here and even the way they had tied up the mouth of the beasts,” said Mr Mafoko.

The rustlers only took steak, tongues and livers from the cattle leaving the bones and offals. Another villager, Mr Tafadzwa Chabata, vowed to leave no stone unturned in the search for the culprits.

“Look, these guys are just ruthless I think if they really knew how we suffer in raising funds to buy these cattle, they would have at least have mercy on us. As a village, we are not going to leave a stone unturned in making sure these criminals face the full wrath of the law,” he vowed.

Village head Mr Oliver Zinhanga expressed shock and disappointment saying they had assumed stocktheft cases had become a thing of the past in the village.

“As the village head I am totally devastated by what happened here. In fact, we had totally forgotten about this type of crime in this area thanks to the stiffer penalties, which the courts are handing down on stocktheft convicts,” he said.