A man was shot and critically injured in what appears to have been a botched hijacking outside a Chatsworth mosque last night.
This is the second shooting at a mosque this week after the killing of a worshipper, also in an attempted hijacking, outside the Mohammedeya Musjid Mosque in Sparks Road on Monday.
A third man, a school bus driver, was shot and killed in a hijacking incident on Thursday in Phoenix.
Dawood Kassim, who gives the Azaan call to prayer at the Iqbalia Musjid mosque, was shot in his parked car in the mosque yard after leaving evening prayers around 8.30pm last night.
Police spokesman Lieutenant- Colonel Vincent Mdunge said the shooting took place in Summerfield Road in Unit 2, Bayview. “When police arrived at the scene, members of the public had already taken the wounded man to the hospital,” he said.
Moulana Mubarak Khan was one of the first people on the scene and rushed Kassim to RK Khan Hospital, said V Gani, a trustee at the mosque, who was speaking from the hospital late last night.
“Kassim was shot outside the mosque. He is in a critical condition. He was shot in the mouth. His jaw is crushed and the doctor tells me that they can’t find an entrance wound or an exit wound,” Gani said.
“As soon as I got the call I went to the police station and to the mosque but by the time I had got there the moulana had already taken him to the hospital in the same car (that he was shot in). As the moulana entered the premises two people exited the car and ran off. They fired one shot and then fired another two shots into the air as they left,” Gani said.
A nearby resident, who asked not to be named, said one of the suspects was apparently cornered by members of the public and the police had to intervene.
The shooting comes after Shaber Asmall was shot dead outside the Mohammedeya Musjid Mosque in Overport around 9.20pm on Monday in an attempted hijacking. Asmall had been rushing home with medication for his 83-year-old ailing mother when he was shot by three hijackers minutes after he emerged from the mosque.
And in a separate incident a Durban school bus driver was killed after he told three hijackers he would only hand over the keys to his vehicle when all the disabled children were safely out of it.
When the hijackers refused to release the children, Ash Kemraj Balgobin, 57, reached for his gun but was shot and killed.
During the attack the hijackers also shoved a 10-year-old girl, who has cerebral palsy, out of the bus.
Police Captain Thulani Zwane said no arrests had been made. - Lyse Comins and Arthi Sanpath