- Touts Kiminja and Nderitu have not paid rent for the last three months
- They were left with dislocated arms, broken teeth and other injuries after they were beaten by a blunt metal object and stones.
A landlord has denied beating up two matatu touts in Kiambu town for failing to pay three months' rent.
Landlord Antony Njoroge said the two touts - Maxwell Kiminja and Antony Nderitu - were taken to Kiambu Level 4 Hospital after they were attacked by strangers on Sunday at 8pm after arriving at home.
He told the Star he played no part in the beating.
The two friends, both age 25 and neighbours, suffered dislocated arms, broken teeth and other injuries after they were beaten by a blunt metal object and stones, they said.
They were left lying on the floor unconscious.
Kiminja and Nderitu were taken to the hospital but didn't have a police form so friends took them to Kiambu police station. There they filed a police report saying their landlord and a gang of four men attacked them on Sunday evening.
“We were on our way home at around 8pm when we were attacked by four people metres from our house. The landlord joined them when we walked onto his property,” Nderitu said.
“He asked us to move out of his house on Sunday evening because we had not cleared our rent for like three months.”
They told the Star the matatu business was doing badly because of the Cobid-19 effects and that some of them could not get any income after the operators pulled their vehicles out of the road.
“Even the few matatus on the road are making very little income. You end up giving the owner everything and sleeping hungry,” Kiminja said.
Neighbours, who witnessed the beating, said that the landlord was among the attackers.
“At one point, the landlord followed one boy who managed to lock himself in his house. We saw him break the windows and forced the boy out,” a neighbour said.
“They were beaten and left conscious and we were not allowed to help,” he said. The neighbours refused to be identified for fear they too could be attacked.
They said they have seen the four-man gang a number of times in the area.
"They had a motorbike and left after beating them,” one neighbor said.
(Edited by V. Graham)