Durban - Police are investigating the possibility that the same gang kidnapped and hijacked two women in the Highway area in separate incidents.
In both incidents the men drove around with their victims while demanding bank card pins and drawing cash from ATMs, before leaving the women stranded in townships.
On the evening of July 18, Caron Whateley, 43, was kidnapped from outside her Westville home by three men. The men shoved a beanie in her mouth and pushed her onto the back seat of her car, forcing her head down between her knees.
They demanded jewellery from Whateley, but she wasn’t wearing any. They then demanded her pin and drove around with her, drawing cash from her accounts. Later the three left Whateley at the side of a road in Inanda.
Last Wednesday, 76-year-old trauma counsellor Thelma Smith was hijacked at gunpoint by three men in Pinetown and forced onto the back seat of her vehicle, where her head was pushed between her knees.
The men drove around with Smith for two-and-a-half hours, demanding her bank pins and withdrawing cash from her accounts. Smith was punched in the faced before being dumped in KwaNdengezi near St Wendolin’s. One of the three suspects has died in a shoot-out with police near Shongweni.
The police had not ruled out the possibility that the two hijackings could have been carried out by the same men, spokesman Captain Thulani Zwane said.
He said no arrests had been made in either case.
Speaking from her office at the Open Door Crisis Centre in Pinetown on Monday, Smith said she had been unaware of Whateley’s case.
Although the suspects had threatened to rape and kill her, she had been unsure of their intentions.
Smith said she had been relieved when they threw her cellphone at her when they dumped her in KwaNdengezi.
Smith’s sister, Thora Mansfield, the director at the centre, said she and Smith dealt with trauma victims daily, including victims of rape and hijacking.
Mansfield said unless victims received counselling, they were at risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Further trauma can be suffered by the victim when there is also poor delivery by police,” she said.
Mansfield said crimes against women needed to be given priority by police.
Daily News