Durban - A 32-year-old woman recalled on Monday how she wrapped her hands around her cousin’s 2-year-old child to protect him as a robber poured a kettle full of boiling water on them at Albert Falls four years ago.
“If you don’t give us what we want I will burn you and your baby,” he said.
“I didn’t think he would take the water and pour it over me. He poured half the kettle on me and the child,” said Sumaiya Vally, dressed in traditional garb with her face covered, in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday.
She was testifying in the trial of Lucky Mbonambi, Siyabonga Mchunu and Mvusi Dlamini who have all pleaded not guilty to the theft of a motor vehicle, aggravated robbery, six counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and the unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.
The day the crimes were committed, Vally, of Kranskop, her mother Fawzia and father Dawood were visiting their relatives, the Lakhi family, at their home in Albert Falls.
She was in the kitchen with the child when she heard her father shout something in Zulu. She looked in the lounge and saw men armed with rifles and handguns enter.
She wanted to push the child out the back door, but a man stood behind her with a gun in his hand. He told her to give him the child. She refused. He grabbed her scarf, pulled her by the back of her hair and dragged her to the lounge, carrying the child.
He told her she knew why he was there and what it was that he wanted.
“He said to me, if you want to be a good mama and protect your baby, tell us everything. He went to the kitchen and I saw him fill water in the kettle and put it on to boil.”
He then poured it over them.
She said the man then went upstairs where the Lakhi family was. One of the robbers was left to guard her and the child.
“I was praying out loud to calm the crying child and was repeatedly told to shut up.”
She said the person who burnt her also took her mother’s keys and she saw him also pour boiling water on her. Vally said the men also took her father’s money and beat him. Ahmed and Feroza Lakhi were bleeding and injured. She said that one man screamed that they should all be shot.
Ebrahim Lakhi then arrived and they beat him up. Eventually they took everyone outside and made them kneel, leading them to think that they were going to be shot “execution style”.
But they were all pushed in the back of a vehicle used for loading, which had no windows or ventilation.
Ebrahim found a garden fork and managed to break the door, allowing them to escape.
The trial continues.
The Mercury