Seaview resident calls for extra community involvement in combatting crime
A woman living in Seaview is determined to get her community working together to combat crime by putting up cameras in the community.
WITH what many would call a gumption, Loshini Rangan (47) is no shrinking violet.
Her husband Deren (49) is similar to her in that regard.
Having experienced her first home invasion in March, Loshini said she is determined to make her neighbourhood safe because living in fear isn’t an option she is prepared to accept.
Asked how many house breakings she had experienced in the time since moving to the Hillary area five years ago she said this one was the first, and as she tells it, “the last!”
Adrenalin
“All three of us, my husband, Deren and my son, Vivek who is 13,” are the people who tend to fight rather than take flight when adrenalin hits,” she laughed.
“I really think the men who broke into the house that evening had no idea they would be resisted the way we did.
They broke into the back of the house, there were two men and a third one in the car at the back. We had the gate locked but the door was open,” she said.
“My husband was having supper and I was sitting in the lounge watching Game of Thrones on my laptop, and I heard a bang. I looked up and could just see shadows.”
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Two men were trying to get through the locked security gate.
“The next thing they had the gate about 60 per cent open,” exclaimed Loshni.
“My husband stood up, with a supper plate in his hand and he pushed me aside and rushed at the door way,” she continued, adding that he began wrestling the one man who had got in, as well as preventing the other from gaining access using the exercise cycle which was close to the entrance they were breaking in through.
“Then the other guy started shooting,” she said, indicating where the gunshot went into a wall in the bathroom at the back of the house.
When the dust settled, the incident served to galvanise Loshni into action, determined that her experience would be used to affect further improvements in the community’s safety.
Neighbours
Loshini said the need for neighbours to know each other and work together to fight crime cannot be under estimated.
“We don’t have a good communications system on this road and if we had it might have caused someone to prevent the incident from happening in the first place,” she said.
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Asked if their neighbourhood had a WhatsApp group or any other way for neighbours to keep in touch and look out for each other Loshini said there had been nothing, but she was planning to make sure that changed.
“I am going to be going around with another lady who lives across the road from me with my son to chat to people about getting a surveillance camera set up for the area,” she said.
Buy in
“I have been looking in to the service by Blue Security and getting a buy in and petition from all the people in this area to proactively organise as a community to prevent crime,” she said.
“It needs to be a collective responsibility,” she said. “Over and above the technology, people need to overcome their natural tendency to keep to themselves,” she explained.
With this crime we have we need to be more aware of each other and who is in the area so we can monitor if there are suspicious people planning a break-in.
Cameras
After the incident Loshini has also installed cameras which keep an eye on the perimeter of her property.
“I had to cut all the trees to allow more visibility for the cameras,” she said explaining that for she, who is an avid gardener, to have to cut down trees was very upsetting.
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