Despite local police claiming to be sufficiently patrolling the streets of Laudium, crime in the area continues, with police remaining dumb as to why residents are being terrorized by criminals on an almost daily basis.
Even crime such as cable theft from street poles continues, with police either not being interested or unable to catch the culprits. This follows yet another incident of cable theft in the early part of the morning, this past Wednesday, (Feb 23), this time from a street pole on Agra Street West.
Speaking to the Laudium Sun, a resident of Agra Str West, Nizam Cassim who also has a tuck shop on his property said, “It was at around 2am this morning when some of the lights in the neighborhood, suddenly went off. Messages were sent on the WhatsApp Groups about there being no lights, which many of us only saw when we woke up. No one knew what the problem was and at first, some residents thought it was a problem with the nearby electricity sub-station, whilst others thought that it may have been due to load shedding. It was only later in the morning, when one of the residents, Zubair Hassen noticed that the electric cable had been stolen from the outside street pole near his house. He then immediately posted the information on the community group. This area is becoming such a danger to us, because if these guys are not stealing the fencing opposite our houses or breaking into our homes, even stealing the taps from our yards, then they are stealing electric cables from the street poles. Besides the community complaining that our police are not patrolling the streets, the community should also be asking where are the private security companies that are charging the houses for security patrols. How come we have so much crime in Laudium, despite having so many private security companies patrolling. As a paying customer, I had to ask my security company many times to patrol my house, as I very seldom saw their vehicles in my area. They refused to let me know how many times their vehicles were required to patrol outside my house. I even sent them info on suspicious people walking in our street, many times and of nyaope guys stealing and carrying the fencing from opposite us, taking it into the graveyard, but still they did not respond. I have since then cancelled my service with them, because it’s of no use. These guys mostly come to a crime scene only after the thieves are gone. It is time that those who are paying security companies for patrols, ask how come they do not catch the criminals in the act of stealing.”
The Laudium Sun also spoke to Zubair who said, “We are tired of these nyaopes stealing in our area and now even this cable theft is a problem. We can’t even sleep in peace at night. We are always hearing about houses in the area being broken into or even taps being stolen from the yards. Crime is a big problem in our area as we are right across the graveyard and whenever these nyaopes steal in the area, they run to the graveyard and from there disappear into White Blocks, where they sell the stolen stuff for drugs. It is time that the community stands united in fighting crime and also gets rid of these nyaope guys who are causing a problem.”
