Following a march on Tuesday, 16 June to the Roodepoort Police Station to seek justice for slain Tshegofatso Pule, justice has prevailed.
Community activists Mkubukeli and Khumo Molumbi led the march to the police station where a memorandum, seeking to dispel gender-based violence, was handed over to the station’s management.
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The march, which sought to denounce femicide and put pressure on the police, seems to have lived up to its expectations, although sooner, as the police have issued a statement announcing the arrest of a 31-year-old suspect whom they have linked to the incident.
The 28-year-old eight-month pregnant woman was found stabbed and hung on a tree in a veld in Durban Deep, Roodepoort after having been missing for three days.
Also read:
https://www.citizen.co.za/roodepoort-record/2020/06/11/candle-lighting-memorial-held-in-meadowlands-for-tshegofatso-pule/
She was laid to rest on 11 June in Soweto while police continued to investigate the case.
At the march, the Provincial Police spokesperson Captain Kay Makhubela promised an arrest within seven days; however, it happened sooner than expected, as the suspect was nabbed and arrested only a day later.
According to National Police spokesperson, Colonel Kheza, following a crime-intelligence operation, the suspect was arrested on his way back from Mpumalanga and is set to appear in the Roodepoort Magistrates’ Court today, 17 June.
Just like the youth of 1976 who died fighting a worthy cause, the crowd in Roodepoort shared the same spirit as they defied the plummeting temperature accompanied by freezing cold and rain, to seek justice for Tshego.
Clad in black and bearing placards with bold, emotional messages, the crowd gathered outside Horizon Village and chanted, and then marched to the Roodepoort Police Station where they demanded action against Tshego?s killer/s.
“We are here today to demand that the President and his Cabinet declare femicide a national crisis, and we demand that he deals with gender-based violence with the same energy and verve he did with Covid-19,” said Lerato during her address.
“They kill our mothers, daughters and sisters with such brutality that it puts any pandemic to shame. This killer of our women is man – the very same man that we’ve given life to,” she lamented.
She said the aim of the march was to seek justice for Tshegofatso Pule and the countless other victims of femicide.
Among the demands is for the President to redeploy soldiers to the streets to tackle the femicide scourge, with Lerato saying that we might wake up to a motherless nation.
She went on to direct their grievances to the Police and Justice Ministries for action.
“To the Minister of Police, we demand the police to put femicide cases at the top of their agenda,” she said.
“We also want to remind the Minister of Police and his police force, should they fail to act today, tomorrow [someone very close to you] will fall victim to the scourge,” Lerato warned.
She went on to plead with law-enforcement agencies to help victims of GBV as quickly and in the most professional manner possible, and avoid treating them with disdain when they come forward.
“We also want to remind the Minister of Justice to prioritise gender-based violence cases and prosecute the perpetrators of this scourge with expediency to the fullest might of the law. Also, we are tired of femicide case trials dragging on for so long, and only prolong the closure the victimised families are longing for,” she concluded.
This is a developing story.
