Police on Friday were forced to shot in the air to disburse matatu operators in Mlolongo who were protesting against harassment from an outlawed group.
Mlolongo assistant county commissioner, Obed Mose, said the officers shot five live bullets to disburse the protestors.
"The Mlolongo police were informed on phone that there was a looming strike by operators of a matatu transportation company over what they termed harassment and frustration from an outlawed group," said Mose.
Mose said a section of the Lucky Transporters workers, a company which owns buses plying on Nairobi-Machakos and Nairobi-Kitengela routes, had on the fateful day downed their tools purposely to hold the demonstrations.
He said the operators complained that some of the members of a group called GASA, which operates like the outlawed Mungiki group kept extorting money from them on daily basis.
Mose said the skirmishes happened at 6.00pm leaving windscreens of a bus belonging to the same company smashed. The day before the operators had been addressed by a team of security officials from Athi River sub-county and armed officers in civilians attire had been deployed to man the affected areas which included Mlolongo, Nation and Kapa stages all within the town.
He said some of the members of the alleged group, suspected to be armed with crude weapons had just emerged when the demonstrations became futile as the protesters tried to attack them.
"Our officers who were at the scene during the incident were not able to identify members of the outlawed group from the crowd, that is the reason why they shot on air to disburse everyone at the scene then," said Mose.
Mose however revealed that the officers managed to arrest one of the suspects after he had been identified by the matatu operators.
He said the suspect had since been locked up at the Mlolongo Police Station and was under interrogations to help arrest his colleagues who are on the run.
Leonard Ng'ang'a, chairman of Lucky Transporters Company, said members of the group had for the last one week been terrorizing its workers plying on the routes by demanding Sh100 from them for each trip the vehicles made.
Mose said that the police will pursue all the suspects to ensure that the group is suppressed and rendered in effective and non existence.
He said that the group is illegal and has got no right to obstruct or interfere with smooth operations of vehicles belonging to any company in the entire transport industry.