Durban - A Clare Estate man was shot dead by hijackers and his woman companion forced out of his car before the attackers sped away at the weekend.
The man, who had stopped at a shop on the corner of Blamey and South Coast roads in Clairwood to buy a cigarette lighter was returning to his VW Polo when he was shot.
According to Imran Houssan, who was opening his nearby shop at about 6am on Saturday, said: “The guy parked his car in front of the shop. He wanted to buy a cigarette lighter. He was going back to his car after he had bought the lighter. Two guys were following him. One was tall with a shaved head and wearing a blue T-shirt. The other was short and was wearing a white shirt. The short guy was walking in the front and the tall one in the back.”
He said three shots were fired. The first hit the victim in the head and the other two were fired in the air, presumably to frighten the woman in the car. “But she did not get out of the car. They then opened the door of the car and forced her out.”
Houssan said the two sped off, with the short man at the wheel.
Houssan, a Bangladeshi national who has been in South Africa for 15 years, said the shooting had left him traumatised. “Life has no value in South Africa. I feel very scared in South Africa.”
Ahsan Habib, who sold the lighter to the man who was shot dead, said: “My gate was locked at the time. He came in to buy the cigarette lighter. I was busy with another customer, he bought his and he left to go outside. Then I heard something like a firecracker going off. After a minute he was dead. His girlfriend was crying non-stop.”
Habib said police and an ambulance arrived shortly thereafter.
“I am feeling sorry. I am not feeling well,” said Habib.
Police spokesman, Captain Thulani Zwane, said that a case of murder and carjacking had been opened at Montclair police station after a man was shot and killed outside his vehicle by unidentified suspects.
Daily News