All is fair in love and war, goes an English adage. I don't know which of these the police officers had in mind last week when they descended, batons and all, on Ngonya wa Gakonya's sect.
I am also not sure whether the women, in whose name the exercise was carried out, were amused at the turn of events. I know I was not. Violence is unacceptable, whatever form it takes and whoever the target. But let's start this story from the beginning.
My colleagues and I were just winding up a meeting last Wednesday when our ears were assailed by a quite melodious Kikuyu song with a catchy rhythm. Even though Nation Centre is a popular destination for demonstrators, the extent to which people will go to make their point never ceases to fascinate me.
Curious to find out what the demo was about this time, we dashed to the windows looking out on Kimathi Street. Marching past was a small band of men, women and children, some dressed in brilliant white, most waving twigs. Weaving between them was a sea of street children, who made the group appear larger than it really was.
For a moment or two, we speculated on whether it was Mungiki or Tent of the Living God, but returned to our business as the procession swept past without stopping.
We should have paid more attention. Soon, reports started trickling in that there were disturbances two streets further up, which eventually blew up into the news of the day in the city: The protesters, we were initially told, had attempted to address the public in support of female genital mutilation.
Later reports suggested that they were members of the Tent of Living God actually seeking to distance themselves from Mungiki – another indigenous grouping defined by dreadlocks and a return-to-our-roots philosophy – who had given women in Central Kenya a deadline to get circumcised willingly or be forced to do so. How true this is will be established in court, we hope.
But Police Commissioner Philemon Abongo's men were certainly not taking any chance. Perhaps stung by frequent accusations of negligence in their approach to violence against women, the police threw themselves into the task with so much vim and vigour that those watching could not help wincing along with the targets.
Watching the police crackdown on the zealots later on television, I couldn't help marvelling at how far the gender debate has come in Kenya – and how far we still have to go as far as human rights are concerned.
Sitting there, mouth agape as someone was dragged from his hiding place under a car and given the whacking of his life, I temporarily forgot that these people stood accused of having given women in Central Kenya aged between 13 and 70 an ultimatum to get circumcised voluntarily or face forced mutilation.
As I watched the children caught up in this battle not of their making, I could not help wondering how any self-respecting parent could possibly put their offspring in the line of fire, as it were. And for a cause as pointless as female genital mutilation!
There's one thing I am sure we can all agree on: weirdos who go about spreading fear and despondency among women – or any other Kenyans, for that matter – in the name of upholding traditions deserve to be stopped in their tracks. How we go about it is another question altogether.
On the face of it, the threat to women in Central Kenya could be dismissed as just another gimmick by a group of pseudo-religious nonentities desperate to grab public attention. They thrive on publicity and we validate their existence by playing the game according to their rules.
But we must also remember that this is the same collection of people who have wreaked havoc on bus routes in places like Nairobi and fought pitched battles in low-income estates in which people have died.
How seriously, then, should we take the threats against women? Seriously enough to haul off the sect leaders to court and lock them behind bars – not only because women have the right to peace in this country, but because no one group should be allowed to impose their views and beliefs on others.
It was a free country the last time I bothered to check. There's cause for celebration when the justice-dispenser seeks to affirm this.
But there's one problem with last week's assault. Even if it were true that they were really trying to work up public support for female genital mutilation, there is a certain risk in unleashing violence on them. It might just win them enough sympathy to swing a few more followers in their direction.
Women's human rights will not be upheld by replacing one form of violence with another. We turn common thugs into heroes when we subject them to this form of public assault. And there are enough twisted minds around, as it is, to have us worried about the safety of our women.
In the same week, UN-Habitat released a report saying 25 per cent of women in Nairobi had been victims of gender violence. The implication is that 400,000 women are constant victims of violence from relatives, colleagues, teachers and lecturers, police, council askaris and street criminals.
It was also the same week when Sirisia MP John Munyasia vigorously vowed in Parliament that he would oppose the Domestic Violence Bill "like a real man". Wife battery was an exaggeration, the MP said, and – at any rate – men needed "total authority" to instil discipline in their families and, "a little slap to a partner is merely to say that I am unhappy about something". My sources say his speech was accompanied by much hooting and mirth.
What all this suggests to me is that the security of women needs to be approached much more seriously than we have done. Violence, whatever the form it takes, should not be cause for amusement in civilised society. At the same time, the problem cuts so deep that strong-arm techniques just will not do the trick.
We can beat and lock up a few mad people today, but it will be a task well-nigh impossible to round up the millions others who quietly defy the law and send their little daughters to the traditional circumciser.
The battle we have on our hands is a much more subtle one. Its a question of attitude adjustment, so that leaders who get up and speak in favour of violence find themselves the laughing stock of their communities.
Ms Oriang' is the Deputy Managing Editor, Daily Nation