Metro cops under fire for not stopping.
Police yesterday stepped up highway patrols after a Joburg man was ambushed and killed on the N1. But Joburg's metro police have still to explain why a patrol car that passed minutes before didn't stop to remove the rocks from the road - or assist another motorist who had also crashed into the rocks.
Arren Mahabir of Northriding was on his way to Durban with his fiancee Valesh Naidoo in the early hours of Thursday morning, when he burst his tyres on the rocky ambush.
As they got out, they were accosted by robbers who shot him and fled with the couple's belongings.
Shortly after the paramedics arrived, Mahabir (32) died. His funeral was held in Durban yesterday.
Last night, a heartbroken Naidoo (31) struggled to come to terms with the slaying of the man she called her "backbone" - a person she described as an extremely timid, gentle person who would never harm anybody. "Arren and I got out and walked around the car. The front passenger tyre was flat, but the other three were fine," she said, trying to hold back tears.
As Mahabir was dialling the emergency number for assistance, Naidoo heard footsteps behind her. "Before we could do anything, one of them pushed me to the ground," she said.
The robbers demanded their wallets, cellphones and a laptop. Mahabir called out to her: "Love, give them what they want and just lie down." Immediately after that she heard a bang.
"I called out to him but he didn't answer. I got up and I saw the four guys running off," Naidoo said tearfully.
She tried to flag down passing motorists, but no one stopped. "I was on my knees, crying and begging for someone to help me. Eventually one lady stopped," she said.
She will never forget holding her fiance, watching him gasping for air, fighting to live. Last night, provincial police spokesperson Captain Julia Claassen said ongoing crime prevention would entail stepping up the number of highway patrols. She said there had been no developments in the investigation.
A Benoni driver, who passed the obstruction half an hour before the incident, told the Saturday Star yesterday that a metro police car had passed him after he pulled over on the highway to change his tyre and had threaded its way through the debris on the road without stopping to clear it.
He only realised the severity of the incident when he heard the news later on Thursday. "I'm getting a bit of a sick feeling now." The driver said there had been two cars on either side of the highway flashing their hazard lights. These took his attention off the road, causing him to crash into the rocks.
He managed to get to the island and parked directly in front of the floodlit construction site. "Two or three tow trucks passed me. One even stopped to check on me.
The metro cop car just passed. I assumed he was aware of the situation and had called for help."
He said people he thought were construction workers were close enough to assist, but didn't. But officials at the WBHO site office at the William Nicol Drive turn-off yesterday said there had been no workers around 2am as they had all finished around midnight.
The South African National Roads Agency, which commissioned the roadworks. said there would not have been workers at the site at that time of the morning.
Yesterday morning, Joburg metro police department Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar promised that an internal investigation into the metro police patrol would be finalised in two hours. Late last night, he said investigations had still not been concluded.
Minnaar refused to divulge any further details.
Fact box:
- Arren Mahabir's murder has sparked fears of a return to the highway ambushes that plagued Gauteng in 2004 and 2005.
- In April 2004, Elna du Plessis was one of several motorists to hit a rock placed on the N1 within 100m of the Gauteng Transport Department's Arrive Alive camp set up at the Buccleuch interchange.
- In 2005, a gang which had been terrorising the highways had reportedly attacked more than 20 motorists in two months on the highway between the Rigel Avenue and Atterbury Road offramps. The gang struck late at night and snared victims by placing heavy-vehicle tyres on the road near or under bridges, forcing vehicles to crash into embankments
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