A 15-year-old pupil at Fatima Mission High School was raped and strangled by an unknown assailant who broke into the school on Wednesday night, Radio Dialogue has learnt.
ZRP national police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi confirmed the incident and referred further inquiries to Matabeleland North police who are handling the case.
The police said they have since deployed police with sniffer dogs at the scene to carry out investigations.
“The police are busy with sniffer dogs on the scene trying to sniff out the suspect who allegedly raped and killed the 15-year-old girl,” said the police.
However, the police said they will give a full official comment after gathering more facts of what transpired, adding that the body of the deceased pupil has been taken to United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) for postmortem.
Sources at the school say on Wednesday, a suspected rapist cum murderer tripped power at one of the staff quarters where the Form 1 pupil was staying with a relative.
“This happened at about midnight. The rapist got into the house after having tripped power and raped the girl before strangling her to death,” said the official, who declined to be named.
He said the suspect then went into the next room with the intention of raping another girl who was sleeping there.
“As he tried to rape the girl, she managed to scream thereby alerting everyone in the house who woke up to assist the screaming girl. That’s when they discovered that he had raped and killed one of the girls,” said the official.
He said by the time people woke up, the suspect had run away.
“It is still a mystery even up to today. We don’t know how the rapist managed to get into the house,” said the official.
The school’s senior master, Gladness Ndlovu could not shed more light on the matter, referring all questions to the headmaster who was not immediately available for a comment.