The fear of falling victim to crime continues to be the main concern for Laudium residents, with many having sleepless nights, as criminals even prey on victims during the dark hours of the night, seemingly without fear of being caught by the police, who are rarely seen patrolling the streets in the area.
This follows, yet another incident of crime on Cuprene Street, which has once more caused panic amongst residents in the area. In the latest incident of crime stats reported to the Laudium Sun, a Cuprene Street property was attacked by nyaopes, many of whom frequent the area and even squat at the nearby reservoir. During the early hours of the morning, last Saturday (January 22) thieves entered the property of Akber Rahman Ahmed, who has been living there for more than 30 years.
Akbar explained further, “Early Saturday morning, whilst my family and I were asleep, I was awoken by a strange noise at around 2am in the morning. It was as if someone had jumped over our front gate. But then, all was quiet, so I didn’t bother going out to check. I thought that I must have been imagining as I was in a deep sleep prior. But then, about 15 minutes later, while I was still in bed, before falling off to sleep, I heard something fall. I immediately got out of bed and quickly put my bathroom light on. That is when I heard the sound of someone running. I then went to my front room and checked through the window to see what was happening. I saw a young guy running from our yard and going across the street into the bushes. I was scared to go out at that time, so I went back to bed. At around 6:30 that morning, I went outside to check the yard. I was shocked to find that the copper piping for water and some other loose items kept in the yard were missing. These daring thieves closed the mains tap in front of my house and stripped most of the piping. We did not have water the whole day, as we had to first replace the stolen copper pipes. I believe that there could have been two guys who came into the yard and that they were there before, as they seemed to know exactly what they wanted and also they were very fast. This is not the first time that thieves are stealing from our yards or even our homes in this area. Many of my neighbors’ houses have been broken into over the past few months, even the dustbins went missing. I believe it’s these nyaopes who removed some of the concrete fence pillars from the reservoir and now stay there, who are involved in breaking-into our places. Laudium is becoming a danger for us law-abiding residents and the police do not seem to be interested in arresting these nyaopes who are illegally squatting and stealing. The police must patrol day and night. We have complained so many times to the council to fix the concrete fence, but to date they have not done anything.”
Councillor Naeem Patel said that he would report the missing fence to the relevant council department but stressed that it was the responsibility of the local police to patrol the area.
