Vigilantes breaks law after toddler goes missing
He is eating and he is safe. We just want the little girl back, dead or alive
MALALANE – Following the recent abduction of the brother of a suspect accused of purchasing a three-year-old child for
R15 000, police request that community members not to take the law into their own hands.
The three-year-old of Mgobodzi disappeared nearly three weeks ago after she allegedly went to gather wood at a neighbour’s house, who then returned alone claiming that she had gone missing.
After a hard beating from the community, the neighbour confessed to having sold the child to a member of Jericho Church.
“The community here got angry after the police failed to locate the child, and they arrested the Jericho man who bought the child, but soon released him. The only plan to push them to bring back the child, was to kidnap his brother. He is here in the community, we cannot show you and even the family of the little girl does not know where he is, he is fine. He is eating and he’s safe. We just want the little girl back, dead or alive,” said community members who did not want to be named.
Tonga police spokesman,
Lt Mzwandile Nyambi, said their actions had interfered with the investigation and only added to officers’ work.
“We would like to warn the community not to interfere with our work. We were trying by all means to locate the little girl. Yes, we released the Jericho man because we could not link him to the missing girl, and now by kidnapping the brother, it complicates our job as we are now looking for two people.
“The neighbour who took the child to the bush is still in police custody. We are trying to gain information on what happened when he took the child, and we believe him when he says he sold the child.”
Nyambi said residents who have any information should report it immediately. “We ask the community that if they have information to tell us, rather than taking the law into their hands. We don’t arrest to investigate, however, we investigate to arrest. And we do this in order to have strong cases before the court and secure arrests.”
The missing girl’s relatives said they had no knowledge of the kidnapping and had no involvement in it.
“We do not know anything about the kidnapping of the boy, we have been in the house since our child went missing. We heard they met at the sports ground and heard they kidnapped a brother of the man, but we are not part of it. For us we haven’t heard anything from the police since then. We want our child, dead or alive,” said a relative.
Neighbours of the Jericho man in Boschfontein said they saw about eight bakkies with more than 20 men taking the suspect’s 24-year-old-brother.
“We do not know those people, they took the brother of Mjeb and left with him, now the community is fuming and might go steal a child in Mgobodzi,” said neighbours of the Jericho man.
