MBOMBELA – A bomb threat led to the emergency evacuation of the city’s police station on Wednesday afternoon.
Streets surrounding the police station were cordoned off as emergency services, the fire brigade and bomb technicians rushed to the scene.
According to provincial police spokesman, Maj Brenda Kgafela, a call was received on the police’s 10111 emergency line at around 15:00. An unidentified caller threatened that the police station would be bombed.
“The station commander was informed and K9 and bomb disposal units were summoned,” she said.
Within minutes the entire police station had been evacuated. SAPS employees gathered outside while detainees from holding cells gathered at an underground assembly point.
Bomb-disposal expert, Const Christi Botha and Sgt Natalie Whitton from the White River K9 unit, swept the building with the assistance of a sniffer dog named Rex. By 16:10, Botha and Whitton confirmed that no explosives had been found inside the building.
A crowd of more than 250 civilians had gathered at the scene.
A reliable source explained the suspected rationale behind the bomb threat. “A group of suspects have recently been accused of a serious crime. They have connections on the outside who may want to make their dockets disappear. An explosion would see to that,” the source said.
The source suspects that Wednesday’s bomb threat was made in order to test the police’s reaction time.
“After having done so, the culprit would know whether bombing the station would be viable,” the source explained.
Another source said that members of the so-called perfume gang may have been behind the bomb threat. The group, consisting of more than ten members, stole perfume from Mopani Pharmacy and toys from Toy Zone at Crossing Centre at 04:00 on Sunday.
Read more on the Crossings robbery here.
The five that were arrested are Messrs Tebogo Moloantoa (32), Edward Marion Matthys (40), Alista Ferris (35), Baltazar Nkabinde (35) and Ishmael Smith (39). They appeared in court briefly during the week and will appear in again on May 3. The charges against them include robbery.
Kgafela did not confirm suspicions that the other five members of the “perfume gang” might have been behind the bomb threat.
