Mondiai urges public to report complaints

By GABRIEL LAHOC
POLICE have an Ombudsman Commission which should serve Lae residents who have been abused and treated unfairly by police in the fighting zone operations.
Lae metropolitan commander Chief Supt Nema Mondiai said this following claims of police brutality by people in Lae.
Mondiai said police operations had been scaled down with the withdrawal of the Wabag-based MS-11, leaving Port Moresby’s MS-01 and MS-02 to assist Lae’s MS-13 Task Force and general duties personnel.
He said depending on the law and order situation nationwide, there would always be a need for the mobile squad to be re-deployed elsewhere.
Mondiai, who had briefed police officers before the start of the special operation, said citizens had the right to lodge complaints – and he encouraged them
to do so.
However, he warned that police would not treat criminal elements lightly because of the nature of the fighting zone.
He hoped that trouble-makers would change for the better.
Bumbu Elementary School teacher Eston Steven alleged that he was attacked last Thursday by a mobile squad unit near Biwat compound.
He claimed that after being stopped by the police, an officer squeezed his jaw which forced him to swallow the bettelnut he was chewing.
Steven said while he struggled to breathe, other officers accused him of resisting police arrest and joined in the assault.
He sustained injuries to his head and right knee.
The mothers of his students intervened and identified him to the police who then stopped.