Cape Town - A grieving family has made calls for the swift arrest of suspects linked with the fatal shooting of the nephew of ANC stalwart Dullah Omar, Shaheed.
The family of the 44-year-old father of one are reeling from the incident that occurred on Thursday night. Shaheed was shot and killed in his car at the corner of Govan Mbeki Road and Jan Smuts Drive near Landsdowne.
His 74-year-old mother Zubaida Omar, was in the car with him.
His aunt, Dullah’s younger sister, Miriam Omar, said the family was trying to come to terms with the senseless killing.
“Everyone is very shocked, sad and still cannot believe what has happened. Shaheed was a kind, generous person who would have never hurt anyone and loved helping others,” she said.
“We are all devastated, it is all so unexpected and very traumatic for his mother who was with him in the car and watched her only son shot like that."
“The worst part for her was when she got out to the car and tried to flag down cars to come to their help, no one stopped."
“They were coming from Grassy Park where his mother’s brother lives."
“He had taken her there to visit him because he is not well."
“It’s absolutely senseless. They didn’t take anything even though he offered them the car and whatever they wanted and begged them not to harm his mother but they didn’t take anything."
“They just shot him and then left and in the process robbed us of a wonderful person, someone’s father and husband and left (us) with a lot of questions."
“Thankfully his mother was unharmed but she is traumatised.”
Another relative, who asked not to be identified, said speculations around the motive for the murder should not overshadow the need for those responsible to be brought to book.
Questions around the timing of the murder have arisen following the family publicly asking the ANC to dissociate Dullah’s name from both the region in the Western Cape and a march in defence of President Jacob Zuma ahead of the motion of no confidence in the president earlier this week.
“We know there have been a lot of questions around the motive behind this killing but we do not want a frenzy of speculations even though we ourselves are asking ourselves a lot of questions,” he said.
“What needs to happened now is that we need to allow the police time and space to investigate but we are pleading with them to not let this be another crime that goes unsolved with no one getting arrested.” The Dullah Omar region stated that the police needed to be allowed to conduct investigations.
Police spokesperson Captain FC van Wyk said no arrests had been made and that investigations were ongoing.