A recently reported incident in which a resident from Nirvana was hijacked, kidnapped, assaulted and dumped next to the Percy Fyfe road on a Friday evening is only one of a series of five similar incidents in which members of the Indian community of Polokwane and Mokopane were targeted by a gang of three to six armed suspects.
During each of the incidents reported since last month the same modus operandi was apparently used. Indian businessmen travelling home from the mosque were targeted and overpowered at the gates to their homes.
During the most recent incident a victim was overpowered at his gate by an unknown numbers of armed men who drove off with him in his BMW X5 towards the Percy Fyfe road where he was assaulted. The robbers allegedly demanded cash and left him in the bush. The vehicle was also left behind with the victim.
“It is not sure how the victim managed to get help but the Nirvana Community Policing Forum (CPF) located the victim and the BMW at around 23:30 on the Percy Fyfe road,” former CPF member Cassim Bham said.
Bham who is still closely involved in the CPF and the safekeeping of Nirvana and its residents recalled a similar incident on Saturday evening when two people were injured during a shootout between a resident of Akasia, Mokopane and at least four armed men. A security guard and passerby were both shot in the leg. The suspects were allegedly caught off-guard by the armed resident and fled the scene in a Toyota Fortuner.
On 27 July a Nirvana resident was also attacked at his gate and his Toyota Fortuner and Volkswagen Polo taken. “About two weeks prior to this incident another businessman was hijacked, robbed of his personal belongings and again with the vehicle left on the Percy Fyfe road,” Cassim said. Only a few days prior a well-known medical specialist was attacked in front of his house when pulled over by persons whom he thought were Police officials as they were wearing reflector jackets and had a blue light in their vehicle.
The specialist was also assaulted on the back seat of his own vehicle and dumped in the bush on the Roodepoort road. The suspects demanded cash as well as the remote device to his gate in order to gain entry to his house. “But for the sake of my wife and children I refused to give them the remote,” the specialist told Polokwane Observer during an interview after the incident. He had to ask a drunken man next to the road to borrow his cell phone to call for help and the spare keys to his vehicle as the suspects fled with his vehicle’s keys.
Nirvana residents were asked to be vigilant at all times. It is alleged that the CPF also upped their strategy to keep Nirvana safe and that there is a CPF member available in almost every street of the residential area. “We believe it is the same gang targeting the Indian community of Polokwane and Mokopane. The Police are doing their work, but I think there is always room for improvement. Indian residents are not only followed from the mosque but also from their businesses,” Bham said.
A businessperson who wished to remain anonymous said robbers are still of the opinion that Indians are rich businesspersons and that they are soft targets. “We don’t want to go out after 18:00 anymore. We are even too scared to go to the mosque because we don’t know when we will become the next victim,” the person said.
Westenburg Police Spokesperson Maphure Segobola could not confirm the latest incident and said that the Police might be embarking on some kind of crime prevention plan focussing on Nirvana. “I believe Police are strategising to put a stop to the trend happening in Nirvana but I will have to check with the visible policing commander first before commenting further,” she said.
Story: RC Myburgh
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