Dudula Movement demonstrates outside the Alex SAPS against the arrest of its leader.
Alex police are still looking for the suspect/s who set fire to stalls outside Pan African Mall.
Members of the Alexandra Dudula Movement marched to Alexandra Police Station on May 12 following the arrest of their chairperson Simon ‘Msayza’ Rati.
His arrest follows an incident in which six stalls that apparently belonged to South African hawkers were gutted by fire outside Pan African Mall. The members of the movement demanded to know why Rati was arrested after the stalls were allegedly set on fire.
Alex Police Station Commander Brigadier Lindiwe Magudulela addressed the crowd outside the station and explained why Rati was arrested. “Simon Rati has been arrested for public violence and the complainant is the State,” she said.
According to Magudulela, Rati had been wanted on charges of violent acts during the movement’s recent protest action.
“Last time we arrested six people and we were short of one accused which was him [Rati], and ever since Rati has been running away from the police until May 12 when we finally caught up with him and effected the arrest.”
The movement demanded a working relationship with the police. “We are concerned as the community of Alexandra because when we open cases, they don’t get attended to but when the foreign nationals come to the station, they get attended to and as a result, South Africans get arrested,” claimed Anges Malatji, the public relations officer of the movement and the secretary of #OperationFiyela.
“We have opened cases and we have case numbers, but people who were supposed to be arrested are still out and we see them at the mall.”
Magudulela promised to look into the case numbers provided by the movement and make sure everyone who should be arrested gets arrested.
She said investigating officers and crime intelligence would use the evidence they have to look for the perpetrators of the fire that destroyed the stalls.
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