A petrol station manager was critically injured when one of his employees set him alight at a Kranskop Engen service station, Limpopo police said on Monday.
Colonel Malesela Ledwaba said the two were seen arguing at the N1 freeway station before the incident on Sunday morning.
“At about 10.30am, the suspect went and filled petrol in a container and after a while he went to the manager and poured it on him and set him aligh,” said Ledwaba.
The manager was taken to a local hospital and was later transferred to a medical centre in Gauteng.
“The suspect was also slightly burnt and is in hospital under police guard,” said Ledwaba.
It was not known what the argument was about.
On Monday, Beeld newspaper named the manager as Jaco Rossouw, 34, and said he was the co-owner of the garage.
Trompie Jonker, of Tromar private ambulance services, told the newspaper Rossouw suffered further injuries to the lungs from the powder of the fire extinguisher bystanders used to help him.
“His hair, his eyelashes and almost all his skin had been burnt off,” said Jonker.
Rossouw and his wife Edna lived in Bela-Bela with their two children, aged two and four.
He was in a critical condition with 95 percent burn wounds in the Muelmed hospital in Pretoria. - Sapa