SUN REPORTER writes
A 41-year old man of Lusaka’s Mass Media area has allegedly committed suicide over a memory stick but surprisingly the matter has not been reported to police.
The man, identified as Mike Chileshe, died while being rushed to the University Teaching Hospital on Tuesday evening, February 5, from Kalingalinga Clinic where he was first attended to after he reportedly drunk a poisonous chemical substance.
Mr. Chileshe was reported to have committed suicide after an altercation with an unidentified man over a memory stick.
The unidentified man is reported to have hustled Mr Chileshe for his memory stick while threatening he would see what would happen to him before the end of the week if he did not give him back his gadget.
But police said they were not aware of the suicide case because it was not reported to them.
Both Police spokesperson Esther Katongo said Lusaka Province Commissioner, Nelson Phiri, said they did not know anything about the matter, while a check at the the Kalingalinga Police post, under whose jurisdiction the Mass Media area falls, also revealed that no report of the incident was made to them.
But the records at the Kalingalinga Clinic Outside Patients Department (OPD) indicated Mr. Chileshe was taken there at 18:42hours, after drinking an unknown poisonous chemical, and was immediately referred to the University Teaching Hospital because he was in a critical condition.
He died along the way.
University Teaching Hospital (UTH) public relations officer, Natalie Mashikolo, also confirmed she was aware of the incident.
“Yes I know about that issue because the wife is a nurse here and I think the man was brought in dead. He could have died while being brought here,” she said.
She said the wife was called back home after the husband drunk poison because she was working at the time.
A check at the UTH mortuary revealed Mr. Chileshe’s body was not deposited there.
But mortuary attendants’ supervisor, Mr. Brian Chanda said, “It’s most likely it has been taken to a different mortuary. Maybe a private one.”
Aunt of the deceased, who refused to state her name, told The Sun team that visited the funeral house in the Presidential Housing Initiative (PHI) area on Sunday morning that her nephew killed himself by drinking a chemical substance.
“They found a ka small bottle of a chemical substance by him. It’s most likely that’s what he drank to kill himself,” she said.
She said that the only information they had as a family was that he killed himself after a quarrel with a friend over a memory stick.
“We are trying to find out who that friend is. It’s shocking because, just what was in that memory stick that he could even cause someone to kill himself over it?” she wondered.
“The problem is that even his wife does not also know him well. She said that she has only seen him once and that she did not pay attention when they were talking outside the house because she was preparing to go for work.”
“We have very scant information at the moment, but the police are doing some investigations,” stated the aunt.
According to information obtained from the funeral house, the father of the deceased is a pastor at a named Pentecostal church in Lusaka while the mother works in the diplomatic service.