Durban - WENTWORTH police are investigating four separate incidents that have left one person dead and many injured in the area over the past few days.
Police spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala said a woman was shot and wounded on Saturday at the corner of Silvertree and Lansdowne roads.
On Friday night a teenager, was stabbed on Hime Street and rushed to hospital where he later died.
Gwala said in another incident, a man and his girlfriend sustained injuries when they were shot at by an unknown suspect on Jonas Road.
On Thursday, popular comedian, Andrew Hughes and his passenger were wounded when they were shot by unknown suspects in another vehicle while travelling on Lansdowne Road.
Both men sustained several gunshot wounds. Hughes drove himself and his passenger to a nearby hospital where they were recovering at the weekend.
Wentworth Community Policing Forum (CPF) chairperson Pastor Donovan Anderson said it looked like “Wentworth is on fire” because over the past week it had gone crazy with gun shootings. “It’s out of control. I don’t know why it was mostly drive-by shootings, guys returning fire”
Anderson said they knew of two civilians who were caught in the crossfire - a Hughes and a female passenger in two different shootings.
Lansdowne Road and Hime Street were usually mentioned in Wentworth incidents. But Anderson said Tifflin Road was now joining the fray as violence had now picked up in that area.
“The CPF, Wentworth ministers and church leaders, over a year ago, tried to get a task team, a neutral police force into Wentworth to deal with drug cases and the gang wars.
“Police commissioners had authorised and put together a team to be fully functional in Wentworth right now to handle all high priority crimes and take over murder and attempted murder cases.”
Anderson said the team had been designated to cover the whole of KwaZulu-Natal, but the suburb leaders felt they needed the team in Wentworth because it was now a hotspot.
Community activist Desmond D’Sa said there have been many shootings between the different gangs involved in turf wars and drugs.
“There are a lot of drugs in the area. What the churches and pastors are calling for is that the specialised task team must be given the resources to come and deal with all the guns, drugs, attempted murders and murders.
“We want all the dockets at the Wentworth police station to be handed over to the special team.”
He felt that the people arrested for gun possession, murder, attempted murder and drugs were still walking free and committing the same crime “over and over again; now innocent people were being caught up in that”.
Daily News