SAPS to root out thuggery, violence - Bheki Cele

Police Minister Bheki Cele visited Nkomo Village Shopping Centre in Atteridgeville as well as other other areas perceived to be looting hotspots. Picture: Oupa Mokoena/African News Agency (ANA)

Police Minister Bheki Cele visited Nkomo Village Shopping Centre in Atteridgeville as well as other other areas perceived to be looting hotspots. Picture: Oupa Mokoena/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Jul 15, 2021

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Pretoria - Police Minister Bheki Cele yesterday vowed the SAPS would respond to organised thuggery and violence by those intimidating and attacking law-enforcement officials and communities trying to protect businesses.

Cele yesterday visited the Nkomo Village Shopping Centre in Atteridgeville as well as other Tshwane hotspots. The minister said he was in town to encourage people to be responsible and work with law-enforcement agencies in keeping the spate of looting and violence that has erupted as a result of the #FreeJacobZuma protests at bay.

He welcomed the assistance of residents, but did not encourage the formation of parallel structures. He also expressed concern at the issue of thuggery which saw criminals going to the malls armed and shooting at the police and whoever was trying to protect businesses.

“If you say you are hungry, you don’t have money to buy guns. You would use that money to buy bread instead; so there is thuggery that is organised and we as the police need to respond to that.

“We will be working with the various communities in order to find and get the organisers of these violent acts,” said Cele.

Some residents and organisations also took the opportunity to interact with the minister to detail how they had organised themselves to help protect shopping centres and businesses in their areas. One such group was Kasi Brothers, who organised men from Atteridgeville to help protect and keep their township intact.

“Even though we know that some of the looters are our brothers and friends, we stood together against them from looting our stores because we’ve got families that work in this same community,” said one of the members.

Cele’s spokesperson Lirandzu Themba said the minister also visited Mams Mall, Tshwane Regional Mall and the Ford plant. Themba said Cele had conducted the visits after intelligence revealed that theses areas would be targeted by criminals.

“We urge communities to work together with the police to avert the large-scale looting as witnessed in Soweto, East Rand and KwaZulu-Natal,” said Themba.

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