this interaction as well as to maximise on the meeting with interviewees’ knowledge on the investigation at hand. 4.2.2 Individual interviews have been conducted with the community members randomly selected in the residential area located close to Chiremba turn-off bus stop and Budiriro 5 shopping centre where the incidents leading to the allegations of human rights violations by police occurred. These were done in order to more fully understand how the incident leading to the alleged human rights violations occurred and how the community was affected. 4.3 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) 4.3.1 FGDs were conducted with two different groups of community members from Komboniyatsva. This tool was used to gather a wealth of detailed information and deep insight into the incident. The method created an accepting environment that put participants at ease, allowing them to recount the incident in detail in their own words and to answer questions. Initially the group had reservations as they sought to understand what ZHRC would do with the information they would provide. After an explanation of the ZHRC mandate, a lot of information was volunteered which proved to be useful to the investigation. 4.3.2 The participants in the first group were women who were passing out time at a house near the Chiremba turn off bus-stop. The owner of the house recounted how she had witnessed the incident in detail by reason of proximity of her house to the bus stop. She indicated that the touts who had gathered at the bus stop that day were not the usual touts they knew to operate at the bus stop. Many of them had gathered at the bus stop, coming from other areas and surrounding areas of Epworth. The touts blocked the road and would not allow movement of cars into town. When the police arrived, the touts fought them. The police reinforced, and that is when they started to launch teargases and spray itchy water on the people who were gathered. When people dispersed, some ran into the compound to their homes but others passed through the compound and ran for refuge. At this point, the police started doing door to door searches for any men who was found in the houses and they beat them and took most of them to Harare Central Police station. She recounted how badly men were Page 11 of 37