By REBECCA MUSHOTA and MILDRED KATONGO –
A LUSAKA pastor has been detained by police over allegations that he beat his stepson and nephew to death.
Meanwhile, a Lusaka caretaker has been arrested for allegedly poisoning his two-year-old son and burying the child at the school where he worked.
Eugene Haminda, 38, of John Laing Township and the pastor of Door of Heaven Ministry in Chibolya Township is alleged to have caused the death of his 10-year-old stepson and his nine-year-old nephew.

. KATONGO

Police spokesperson Esther Katongo said the incident happened on Saturday around 17:00 hours.
Ms Katongo said Haminda is alleged to have tied the two boys up and whipped them and, in the process, the children fell onto a cooker which electrocuted them, leading to their instant death.
“The pastor whipped the two male juveniles after he discovered that some money was missing in the house,” Ms Katongo said.
The bodies of the deceased were taken to the University Teaching Hospitals (UTH) mortuary awaiting postmortem, while Haminda was detained in police custody.
Police had instituted investigations in the matter to establish what exactly happened.
And police have arrested George Phiri, 27, of Lusaka’s Chawama Township for allegedly murdering his child aged two years seven months and later burying the body at Daso School of Lusaka’s John Howard
Township where he is a caretaker.
Ms Katongo said police officers were alerted by one of the suspect’s family members.
The incident is reported to have happened on June 26 this year around 19:00hours.
The suspect, who led the police to the scene where he buried his child, is reported to have poisoned the child using doom with a view of killing the child and later killing himself.
He is detained in police custody. The body of the child was exhumed yesterday and was decomposed.
A postmortem was conducted after which the body was buried.
Ms Katongo said police had continued with investigations as samples from the decomposed body had been collected.
Meanwhile, two children have died while two others are nursing severe burns after the temporal farm shelter they were sleeping in caught fire in Chinsali’s Katenga Village.
Muchinga police Commissioner Godwin Phiri said the victims Evans Mukupa, six, died in the inferno, Matthews Bwalya, seven, died later at Chilanga rural health center, while Fredrick Mubanga, nine, and Mukuka, 12, were nursing serious burns at the clinic.
Mr Phiri said a teacher at Chumbu School reported that a temporal farm shelter made of poles and grass belonging to a man only identified as Katenga accidentally caught fire where four children were sleeping in.
He said the incident happened last week on Friday around 22:00 hours.
“We have received a report in which four children were burnt in an inferno. Two died and the other two are nursing severe burns at Chilanga rural health center. The children were sleeping in the farm shelter when it caught fire from the log which was left on the side,” he said.
He said police have visited the scene and that there was no foul play suspected.