Cele pledges to toughen stance on farm killings
“Farm killings like all other killings are taken very seriously. Its an area we would love to respond quickly and work with everybody to reduce those kinds of the attacks,” Bheki Cele.
Police minister Bheki Cele has promised his department would toughen its stance when it comes to farm killings.
During his presentation of the crime statistics reported for 2019/2020, Cele said his ministry was taking farm killings “very seriously – like all other crimes”.
“It’s an area we would love to respond quickly and work with everybody to reduce those kinds of attacks,” he said.
“Why would people go and kill people so brutally and take nothing?” he asked of a recent farm attack in the Northern Cape in which three people were killed and nothing was stolen.
“At no stage, will we undermine the seriousness of farm killings or general murder.”
Police deputy national commissioner Lieutenant-General Fani Masemola said the late response of police during some of such attacks was because of police stations were situated far.
He said the department wanted to recruit farm residents as police reservists and thus “assist in curbing the crime in the remote areas”.
“At this stage, we are reviewing the implementation of the rural safety strategy to see where we come from and where we can improve,” he said.
National commissioner Khehla Sitole said the department was modernising the service to enable fast digital reporting of crimes that would be “effective” in the reporting crimes in remote areas.
“We have decided on the modernisation of policing. We have added the online policing strategy to ensure that we [can help] people in remote areas,” he said.
“We have also shifted the 72-hour action plan [which includes the deployment of crime intelligence, forensic experts, detective services and other supporting units] to make it the rural activation plan.”
Sitole also called on residents in remote areas to become police reservists and try to “combat crimes targeting these areas”.
According to the latest police statistics, farm murders in Gauteng had dropped from 10 murders recorded in 2018/2019 year to only five in 2019/2020 March.
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