Government says the death of a police officer in violent clashes between protesters and law enforcers at Msundwe in Lilongwe was politically masterminded.

On Tuesday morning a group of protesters erected unlawful road block at Msundwe Trading Center and blocked traffic in the Lilongwe-Mchinji road.  

Violent clashes erupted when Superintendent Usumani Imedi together with other police officers were trying to quell the situation.

Superintendent Imedi was seriously injured in the fracas and was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

Addressing Parliament on Tuesday, Minister of Homeland Security Nicholas Dausi said government is confident that the fracas was engineered by some political blocks in the country.

“If you look at the background of all these demonstrations, when an ordinary civil society organization demonstrates its only two people but when we start ferrying people from Nsundwe, Kasiya, Kabudula, Kasungu, Dowa then there are a lot of people coming in town.

“But this time around the people, just waked up closed a road block at Nsundwe without any permission either from the police or city and that’s why they took the law in their own hands.

“Those people calling themselves Msundwe forces they were armed with pangas, knives and they throw stones and objects at the officer thereby injuring him,” Dausi said.

Dausi warned that government will take to task perpetrators of the act once investigations are concluded.