A 55-year-old off-duty police officer was shot and killed at his house in Hammanskraal, Gauteng, over the weekend.

Lieutenant-Colonel Lekone Morris Mohajane, who was the detective branch commander at Mooinooi Police Station, was killed during an apparent hijacking. He was a seasoned police officer with 33 years of loyal service.

North West police spokesperson Brigadier Sabata Mokgwabone says the police are searching for the suspects who murdered Mohajane.

Mokgwabone says Mohajane’s murder ‘came at the crucial time of intensifying the fight against criminality, in which he was playing a crucial role’.

North West provincial commissioner Lieutenant-General Sello Kwena visited the Mohajane family on Monday to convey his condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues.

Kwena condemned the officer’s killing, which was ‘tantamount to undermining the authority of the state and taking away one of the much-needed resources from the community’.

He said that resources had been mobilised to ensure that those behind the murder were brought to book.

Two officers shot in April

In April, two police officers were also killed in two separate incidents when they were targeted for their service pistols.

One of the officers was stationed at the Hillbrow Police Station but was attacked in Extension Eight in Soshanguve on Saturday, April 22.

The constable had returned from participating in a soccer game at the Kgosi Mampuru prison and was later shot in the back in his room.

The attackers took his police service pistol and cellphone before fleeing.

His parents tried to save his life and rushed him to George Mukhari Hospital, where he died.

In the second attack, a police captain was shot in Montana at Sefako Makgatho Drive near the N1 South highway while on duty.

The officer was wounded and airlifted to a hospital.

“He was with his work partner when they were accosted by two criminals who shot the captain and then fled the scene with a service pistol,” says Mokgwabone.