by Nurat Uthman
A Kenyan pastor is being investigated for cult activities after allegations he and other church elders sexually abused a number of women and girls, police said.
The case came to light after the church run by Daniel Mururu in Meru County in central Kenya was torched by irate locals late last month.
Mururu, of the East African Pentecostal Churches of Kenya, as well as church elders and ushers, are accused of indecent assaults including stripping women naked, shaving their pubic hair and having sexual intercourse with them, according to a police report on Monday.
More than seven women and girls ranging in age from 17 to 70 are alleged to have been assaulted, including a 17-year-old schoolgirl who became pregnant, the report said.
Police said their initial investigations had established that Mururu was “running a cult” that had radicalized its followers.
The church members were induced to engage “in indecent acts” for fear of consequences such as “sickness and barrenness” if they defied the pastor’s orders, the police report said.
A devout largely Christian nation, Kenya has struggled to regulate unscrupulous churches and cults that dabble in criminality.
