A suspected thief is fighting for his life after he was beaten by an angry mob in Eldoret town on Sunday.
The middle-aged man whose identity has not been revealed yet is said to have been caught red-handed trying to dodge paying seven trousers he had stolen from a boutique.
The suspect, according to the owner of the shop Kevin Kinyua was cornered at the corridors of Yako supermarket along Oginga Odinga Street after stealing seven trousers.
“The suspect had visited my shop as a potential customer and I was never in doubt that he would steal anything from my shop," noted Kinyua.
He said that the suspect had given an intention of buying jeans trousers which he brought around ten of them for the man to fit himself.
“While he was fitting himself in a changing room, he was hiding some of them in his bag," said Kinyua.
The boutique owner said that the suspect after finishing trying out all the trousers he had been given, he held two trousers out of the ten and declared an interest of buying saying they had fit him well. He, however, needed to visit an M-Pesa shop to withdraw the cash to pay for the two trousers.
“On withdrawing at a Mpesa shop along Oginga Odinga Street, I asked the man to open his bag so that he can keep the trousers he had bought, a request he hesitated to which prompted me to be suspicious of what he was carrying," said Kinyua.
This is when the shop owner confronted the suspect as he was trying to escape and found seven trousers in his bag.
He shouted at the man and notified some pedestrians who were passing by. The angry residents descended on the man giving him a thorough beating before he was saved by the police officer.
The suspect was taken to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital where he is receiving treatment.