The community of Zandspruit, in Gauteng, says it hopes Police Minister Bheki Cele’s intervention will help to bring to book those responsible for last week’s brutal mob justice attack in which eight young men were killed. A ninth victim is in a critical condition in hospital. They were attacked for allegedly committing a number of robberies in the area.
Cele visited the area at the weekend and promised residents that a special task team will be formed to investigate the incident. Cele will provide feedback to the community in three weeks’ time.
The residents say they look forward to his report.
“The minister must explain to us because we need justice first of all. He must give us the way forward as to these people who have done this so that we know as a community that are we safe. Our hearts are sore, we can’t even sleep when with think of those people. What is happening here is really terrible. People can do criminal activities but they do not deserve to die like that.
Swift response
Cele addressed members of the community, “There are several things, one major thing is the response of the police on a particular day. Surely, if they had responded better than the way they did, the situation would have been better here. The second thing is people who are parading as leaders yet they are pushing their criminal activities. It’s a piling of crimes that are not resolved in this particular area.”
Cele has promised the community that a police task team will be formed, to help resolve its challenges. He’s also committed to return to the area, within three weeks, to provide feedback to the community on what has been done to improve the Honeydew Police Station’s performance.
“Police gave a report that there are 550 undetected cases. Some of the cases are murder. Some are rape. The special team that the provincial Commissioner is going to put is going to look on those cases including the cases that just happened here. So that those cases can go where they are supposed to go. Some will go to court and get bail and some will go to prison.”
Cele told the crowd that during his next visit, he would be accompanied by the Ministers of Social Development, Human Settlements and Small Business Development because the problems the residents of the informal settlement are facing are not only crime-related.
In the video below, Minister Bheki Cele outlines what could have been done to avoid these killings. He mentions that had police responded on time, this could have been avoided:
