UPCOMING musician, Takunda “Dada” Deve (26), died last Friday after an unidentified motorist hit and dumped him at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals’ casualty area before leaving under the ruse that he wanted to remove his car from the receiving bay.
BY VANESSA GONYE
Takunda was the late arts critic, human rights activist and veteran journalist Thomas Deve’s son.
The deceased’s aunt, Priscilla Duri, told NewsDay Life & Style that they were still in the dark regarding the circumstances surrounding the accident, besides the little scraps of information they gathered from the police who informed them of his death at Parirenyatwa Hospital on Saturday morning.
“He left Zimre for the CBD around 1 o’clock on Friday. No one knows the exact place he went to, but a friend saw him around 5pm and urged him to go home and he proceeded. Somebody also says he saw him along Jason Moyo Avenue on his way to board kombis for home,” she said.
Duri said the police found a business card belonging to Takunda’s friend and called him as they wanted to locate his relatives.
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“So he (the friend) went on Facebook and found three relatives. One who was in South Africa then called and told my sister to check if Takunda was home. He then advised that we should rush to Parirenyatwa Police Post to check with them,” she said.
“Initially, they said he was alive when he was brought to the hospital, but he was dumped at the casualty reception by the person who brought him.”
Duri said no one knew where the accident occurred or how it happened. To the relatives, the event was strange because Takunda was hardly ever alone.
Another relative who was among those who went to identify his body said it had a deep cut on both the left leg and left side of the head, while his clothes were dusty.
Takunda’s manager, Admire Maramba at Rocks Records, said the musician — who was well-known as I-Ancient in music circles — was supposed to pitch up for a recording on Saturday.
“It came as a surprise as we were waiting for him to come to the studio on Saturday, only to be told of his death. We were working on an album with him and only one song was left half-way through for the album to be completed,” he said.
A post-mortem has been set for tomorrow.