Durban - With police and vehicle tracking agents hot in pursuit, a hijacker leapt out of the moving Audi S3 he had just hijacked and fled into nearby bush, leaving the vehicle free-wheeling with his victim locked in the boot.
The man was found hiding among bush in Embo, near Hillcrest after Monday’s incident, and was promptly arrested.
The woman, believed to be a Chatsworth doctor, was unharmed but traumatised.
Police spokesman Vincent Mdunge said she had been hijacked in the parking lot of the Chatsworth Shopping Centre by a man.
Police were alerted to the car’s location by the woman’s vehicle tracking company.
Altech Netstar recovery agent Thinus Schoeman said that the company had been informed of the hijacking by the Chatsworth SAPS.
The company picked up the tracking unit’s signal and told the police of its location. Both the police and the tracking agents were in pursuit of the vehicle.
Schoeman said Altech Netstar’s helicopter spotted the vehicle.
“There was communication between our helicopter, the ground vehicle and the SAPS. When we saw the vehicle, the hijacker jumped out of it and ran into a bushy area.
“The vehicle continued moving forward for a short distance and the police then contained it.”
The SAPS Dog Unit tracked the hijacker into the bush, where he was arrested.
Schoeman said that the hijacker’s passport and an airgun pistol had been found in the car, as well as R5 000, which he had forced his victim to draw.
It was not certain where he stopped to make her draw the money.
The woman, although traumatised, was grateful to have been found and to have been unharmed, but did not want to talk to the media Schoeman said.
This incident is the third in recent months in which the victim has been held hostage inside their hijacked vehicle.
In October, Yugendree Govender, 34, was hijacked, also in Chatsworth, and subjected to a 16-hour ordeal while the hijackers drove around with her in the car.
She was pushed out of the vehicle in Rossburgh and managed to walk to a nearby petrol station for help.
Two days later, Durban North property agent Dorothy Carlyle was kept in the boot of her hijacked car for about nine hours, during which time she was assaulted. She was rescued in KwaMashu.
Chatsworth is one of the hijacking hotspots in eThekwini. - The Mercury