MP risks life to save woman

By MIRIAM ZARRIGA
A MEMBER of Parliament has told of how he saved a woman in her village in Enga from being tortured by a group of men who had accused her of practising sorcery.
Lagaip-Porgera MP Tomait Kapili intervened when he saw the woman strung up and being questioned about someone who had died.
“I called the police, and told the group of men: If you want to torture her, you torture me,” he said.
“I walked to the front of the group and could feel the tension in the air.
“The armed men were looking at me and gritting their teeth when I went up and stood between the woman and her accusers.”
The men told Kapili that they did not want to harm him and advised him to get out of there.
But Kapili said he told them to kill him first if they wanted to kill the woman.
“I told them not to do what they were doing,” Kapili said.
“As I was talking to them, police arrived.
“I then took her in my car and with the police, took her to Surinki and then on to Wabag.”
Kapili said the woman’s brother just stood there watching her being tortured.
“When I asked them, they told me they were afraid of what might happen to them,” Kapili said.
“They were scared.
“They didn’t want to be killed,” he said.
He said another woman was rescued by her brother who armed himself with a gun and confronted the group, telling them he would shoot them all.
“The accusers fled when they saw the brother with a firearm there to rescue his sister,” Kapili said.
“Relatives of accused women must step in to protect their women. The churches must step in too.”