Hijacked car retrieved within minutes
Two armed men hijacked a woman (40) outside her workplace near Clairwood Secondary School on Monday morning, 20 January.
Yasmin Seedat had parked her vehicle, locked it and headed towards her place of work with her car keys in her hand. Two young men, whom she assumed were school pupils in plain clothes, were walking in her direction. She tried to avoid them but as they approached her, one of them produced a gun and pointed it at her head. They demanded her car keys, which she threw to the ground. One of the assailants picked them up and made off with her vehicle.
The men headed southbound on South Coast Road and they were pursued by police and an unknown taxi when she raised the alarm.
Yasmin Seedat said: “About 10 minutes after the hijacking, two police officers came to me and asked me to escort them to identify my car. We drove down South Coast Road towards Umlazi and I saw my car on the corner of Kenyon Howden and South Coast roads. Police were on the scene and I managed to read the back number plate and identify my car.”
“I heard that a taxi driver was upset with how the men were driving as they had cut in front of him, so he followed them. One of them pulled out a firearm and started shooting at the taxi. A passenger in the taxi identified one of the men. The men ended up driving into a stationary taxi.”
Seedat thanks the taxi driver and the police for recovering her vehicle. She has been traumatised by the incident and is undergoing counselling.
While one of the men were arrested at the scene the other, who is known to the police, is currently on the run.
– mbalim@dbn.caxton.co.za
