Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani gangs on the rise
Ransom is being demanded from their families in South Africa and, sometimes, from relatives in Bangladesh or in Pakistan.
KATHORUS – Following reports of blackmail, kidnappings, torture, extortion and ransom demands allegedly made by local township gangs, Bangladeshi and Pakistani crime syndicates against fellow nationals in the townships, the editor of KATHORUS MAIL, Zaid Khumalo, waited until “Jummuah” – the Friday Prayer Day – at the local Masjid, to speak with several South Asian Muslim immigrants.
He visited several others at their highly-barricaded spaza-shops in the townships, to find out more about those behind the spate of violent criminal activities against their own, and why?
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The rusty and unpainted steel mesh barricades and heavy burglar bars used to shield spaza-shops owned by Bangladeshi and Pakistani foreign nationals from local criminals in the townships are now being used by the same shop-owners to protect themselves against the crime syndicates run by their fellow Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals, who are operating with black gangs to target the shops run by their countrymen in the townships.
Claims of abductions, kidnappings, extortion and high ransom demands being made by organised criminal syndicates linked to both Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals have many South Asian immigrants who run spaza-shops in Kathorus and Palm Ridge, as well as in Soweto and other parts of the country, in a grip of fear.
The kidnappings and ransom demands are said to be aimed at wealthy Bangladeshi and Pakistani shop-owners and their employees.
Ransom is being demanded from their families in South Africa and, sometimes, from relatives in Bangladesh or in Pakistan.
Recent video footage of a Bangladeshi abduction survivor, who claims his relatives were blackmailed by his fellow countrymen into paying a ransom for his release has been linked to a Pakistani syndicate that extorts money from their countrymen who operate businesses in black informal settlements.
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More footage from the same video shows a group of men leaving what is described in the footage as ”a local police station in Ekurhuleni”, after filing a charge of “abduction and extortion” with the police.
But, the Kathorus SAPS’s media liaison officer, Capt Mega Ndobe, has rejected claims of kidnappings involving Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals in the Kathorus area.
“We’ve had no kidnapping or abduction case involving Bangladeshi or Pakistani nationals reported to the cluster in Kathorus in the past 48 hours, prior to you enquiry,” he said.
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But, according to several Bangladeshi and Pakistani nationals approached by Kathorus MAIL for comment, this is not the kind of criminal incident most foreign nationals would want to report to the police.
“Many of them are in the country illegally. And, besides, we are all Muslims,” said a Bangladeshi national and spaza-shop owner who confirmed the existence of what he described in his broken English as “banditos” or bandits.
It’s all about jealousy, added a Pakistani shop-owner who lives in a rented two-room shack with his black girlfriend, in an informal settlement. He asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal attacks from his fellow countrymen.
“They work with black guys who are known in all the areas around Gauteng and they can track you down,” he explained.
Murmurs and rumours of fears and threats of reprisals from marauding, faceless and nameless Pakistani and Bangladeshi nationals and their black local criminal counterparts have spread fear, anger and even frustration among many South Asian immigrants, who decry the abductions and the kidnappings as the work of the “Shaitan”, or satan.
