Nirvana hit: Double blow to head while waiting for food order

A Nirvana food outlet was rendered a bloody scene late Saturday afternoon when a Pakistani man was reportedly repeatedly shot in the head at close range by two gunmen while seemingly waiting outside for a food order. The shooting at close range left a second person who was travelling with him injured after a shot to the arm.
The incident, occurring at a centre in Rajkot Avenue around 17:35 and attracting a large crowd of male members of the Pakistani community in Polokwane, was suspected to have been a possible hit on the deceased, who was identified through his passport as 39-year-old Mirach Muhammad (sic). Whereas it was established on the scene that he was a Pretoria-bound businessman passing through the city on the way back from Louis Trichardt where he apparently spent the day, Provincial Police Communications Head Motlafela Mojapelo said he was of Pakistani origin, was from Laudium in Pretoria and had returned from Louis Trichardt on Saturday afternoon on the way back from visiting a friend.

The injured man who accompanied him on the trip was identified as Pakistani national Dilpazeer Azam, who told Polokwane Observer on the scene that his friend had been threatened two to three days prior to the shooting. Saying that one of the two shots fired at him had hit him in the upper left arm, he estimated that the deceased was shot three to four times.
Mojapelo indicated that the deceased had been shot several times and allegedly hit in the head when they were approached by a coloured man and a Pakistani man respectively who, without a word, started shooting at them while the two victims were waiting for food. “The deceased was allegedly shot in the head and the other victim in the left upper arm.”
Charges of murder and attempted murder are being investigated by the Police in Westenburg. At the time of going to press the motive for the attack was still unknown and Police investigations were proceeding. By then the getaway vehicle, with Gauteng number plates reportedly linked to a stolen vehicle, was seemingly still missing.
On the scene an eye witness informed Polokwane Observer through an interpreter that he had noticed the two gunmen, both armed with pistols, enter the premises after exiting the bakkie parked next to the white 4×4 which the victims drove in, and walk up to the deceased and his friend who were both on their phones at the time. The gunmen simultaneously shot the deceased in both sides of the head, whereupon he fell to the ground and died on the scene, he explained. The man seated on a bench outside the business opposite him had been shot in the upper left arm before the shooters ran to the bakkie before it sped off, he added.
According to his version he heard three shots. At first he didn’t think it was guns going off as it sounded like the sound produced by a cricket, he explained.
Anyone with information on the case is requested to contact the nearest Police station or the Police’s toll-free number on 08600 10111.

Story: YOLANDE NEL
>>observer.yolande@gmail.com