Tears are still rolling down Kampala City tycoon Drake Lubega’s eyes after his teenage daughter Bonitah Birungi was killed by iron bar hitmen.
The 18-year-old Birungi, who was laid to rest on Sunday at her ancestral home in Bunyiri Kyampisi, Mukono district, left her home in Bweyogerere around midday last Tuesday, heading to her father’s office in Kampala when the incident occurred.
It is believed that the boda boda she took led her into the trap of thugs who hit her on the back of her head and went off with all her belongings. She was carrying a bag which contained an undisclosed sum of money and mobile phones.
After noticing his daughter had delayed to turn up, Lubega became anxious.
‘’I waited on my daughter for quite a long time, we called her phone, it was going through but she was not picking. We began to look out for her for almost three days,’’ he said at her burial in Mukono district.
After calling her phone for some time, a male voice picked saying, “The owner of this phone is dead. Find her at Mulago mortuary. And do not bother me again.” He then switched off the phone.
Lubega sent his people to confirm whether what they had been told was true. The family’s fears were to be confirmed after finding Birungi’s dead body lying in Mulago mortuary just as they had been told on phone.
Lubega is hurt because he had just concluded arrangements for his daughter to move to Toronto University in Canada for her degree.
Birungi who graduated her high school from Greenhill Academy in Kibuli was already working as a manager in her father’s polythene paper factory, which is located in Bweyogerere Ntebettebe, and she lived nearby.
One of Birungi relatives said in trying to call on her phone, someone who claimed to be a boda rider picked it up and said that their sister had been knocked down by an over speeding taxi as she crossed the road.
The stranger said he acted as a Good Samaritan when Birungi was left lying helpless on the side of the road around Mamerito Hotel in Bweyogerere, so he took her to Gwattiro Hospital but she was later referred to Mulago Hospital because she was in a critical condition, where she died.
However, Lubega maintained that his daughter was not knocked by any car but rather was hit on her head with an iron bar by ruthless murderers. The postmortem report said she died due to over bleeding through a wound on the back of her head.
Kira Division Police Commander Richard Asiimwe said Birungi was discovered close to Mamerito’s Hotel in a critical state but before they could reach Mulago, she had breathed her last.