Crime and more crime in the Laudium area continues to leave residents living in fear, be it during the day or at night, with no sign of the police having the situation under control, nor of them having any plans to curb the problem, with residents continuing to have sleepless night over the distressing issue.
Despite residents identifying one of the reasons of the high incidence of crime, especially “petty crime”, being the influx of nyapoes into the area, who harass residents for money in the CBD whilst the residents get into their cars, harassing mourners at the graveyards and even knocking on doors of homes, virtually demanding money, police have still not addressed the problem or even bothered to consult with the community as to how to deal with the issue. In yet another incident of “petty crime” this Heritage Day, (Friday 24), at around midnight and during curfew hours, thieves targeted a number of cars parked in the yard of a home on 36th Ave, (corner Bengal Street) in Laudium Ext 2, that is rented out to a number of tenants. Pakistani national, Saeed Ahmed, who is one of the tenants on the property, explained to the Laudium Sun his shocking experience. “I am a late night person and usually sleep at around 2am in the morning and wake up at 6am. As Friday was a public holiday, I did not get much chance to do my paper work. So, on Friday night, my brother and I were in our room. Whilst doing my work, we heard a strange noise that came from the front yard. We wondered what it could have been, as I personally locked the outside gate and did not expect anyone to be visiting us or any of the other tenants, at that late hour of the night, more so as it was also curfew time. When we both went out to the front yard to check, to our shock, we found a young guy inside the yard, near our car. There was also another guy with him. When they saw us, they quickly ran towards the back of our home, jumped the wall and ran away into the dark. They had broken into one of the cars and were busy breaking into two other cars of the other tenants that were also parked in the yard. Our silver grey Nissan Tiida’s door lock and bonnet and even the front-side fender were damaged, as it seems that the thieves tried everywhere to get the bonnet open. After stealing the battery, I think they were about to steal the batteries of the other two cars also, but we disturbed them. Crime in our area is very bad, and this is unfortunately becoming a norm, which is accepted by the community as long as the victim is not hurt. I believe that the guys who were in our yard were these nyaopes who steal and sell the very same goods to people living within our community. I did not report the theft to the police, because the last time I had an incident, they did nothing to catch the culprits. I believe that the police know these guys from White Blocks, who are buying the stolen items, but they are either too scared of them or are being paid by them. If you go to this one house in White Blocks, you will see these thieves going in with a black bags to drop off the batteries they steal. If you want your own battery back, they will charge you R300, while they buy the batteries for R50 from the nyaopes. It is very disappointing and I have lost all hope for law and order in this community.”
Sergeant Simon Chokoe, of the Laudium SAPS, said, “I am sad to learn from the Laudium Sun of this incident of battery theft, which has not been reported to the police. I advise residents to report incidents of crime, as it will help the police to understand the crime situation in the area, and if there is any wrong done by our officers, I ask residents to report them to the Station Commander, as we will not tolerate corruption or inefficiency amongst our members.”
