The mother of a 19-year-old girl, who was arrested on Sunday in the Omusati region for allegedly assaulting her 70-year-old grandmother, has apportioned blame to her husband for recording a video instead of stopping his daughter from attacking the elderly woman.
“When they started arguing, my husband was just there sitting on the chair and taking videos, rather than helping to stop the fight,” Kalista Koti told New Era following last Friday’s incident, which occurred at Oshuungu village and has sent shockwaves across the nation.
“What my husband did was a very shameful thing to the family. How can a big man take a video while his daughter is beating his own mother?”, Koti expressed her disappointment after her husband took the video of their daughter beating his own mother, Lusia Nepolo. In an interview with this publication on Monday, the mother said it is all the husband’s fault, as it was him who took the suspect from her home to the pensioner’s house. There, she argued with her grandmother over gossip, according to Koti.
“On that Friday, I was not home and my husband did not tell me that there is an issue between my daughter and the grandmother, my mother-in-law.
So, I received a call on Friday while I was at Oshakati buying school stationery for the suspect, that she had a fight with her grandmother,” she explained. Koti added that her husband was supposed to act and stop the two from fighting over unnecessary things. “This is not the first time that the pensioner is being assaulted as last year, a grandson of the pensioner was taken into custody for assaulting the same grandmother,” she said. Koti stressed that previously, the suspect is the one who usually defended the grandmother whenever she was being beaten by her grandchildren. This is the first time that the suspect assaulted her grandmother because they always have peace, she added. “My daughter has also disappointed me when she assaulted her grandmother because it is not the right thing to do, and she was supposed to call me before the fight,” she said. “I want my daughter to be released and to apologise to her grandmother, and to also continue with her classes because I already paid for her subjects at Elite Tutorial College, where she registered to upgrade her grade 11 subjects.” Also speaking to New Era was Vitalis Mweshininga, who is the suspect’s father, and said he regretted sharing that video because it caused conflict in the family. “I did not take a video for my daughter to be arrested, but I took it so that I could send it to my wife’s family to see how Ndalila [the suspect] is assaulting her grandmother,” he clarified. He said he sent the video to his wife’s family, who immediately shared it with the public, and it went viral from there. “Now, I am not at peace with my wife. She does not want to talk to me since she is very angry for what I have done because I am the one who caused all this to happen. Therefore, I am regretful,” he stated. On Sunday when New Era visited the homestead of the victim, she told us that she does not have a problem forgiving her granddaughter. People on social media expressed their shock about the vicious assault, and blamed the father who took the video for not rendering help to stop the fight. The suspect is expected to appear in the Oshakati Magistrate’s Court today.