Mamohloga Ramohlale
Cape Town commuters are increasingly becoming victims of gang activity on trains with three people murdered in train violence in the past fortnight.
Yet, the Department of Transport says it does not believe this is a trend and has therefore not prepared special measures to combat the crime.
The latest incident occurred last Monday when a knife-wielding gangsters, who allegedly first smoked dagga on the train, ran amok stabbing commuters. Two passengers were killed and three others seriously injured after they were forced to jump from the moving train during the brutal rampage.
Police representative Wicus Holtz-hausen said a gang of 10 youths first searched and then stabbed Cornelius Adolf (35), and Nicholas Fuller (34), before throwing them out a moving train between Unibel and Pentech stations. The two men died on the scene.
Holtzhausen said Delft police had found the bodies of Adolf and Fuller, both of Chestnut Place, Belhar, riddled with stab wounds next to the tracks at Unibel station at 8pm on Monday.
“Three injured passengers were found next to the line after they jumped out to escape the gang,” said Holtzhausen.
Police arrested three suspects last Wednesday and they appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.
The incident came barely a week after a Cape Technikon student, Jaun van Minne, was attacked and stabbed to death on a train on the Simon’s Town line. Van Minnen (20) and a friend, Kenneth Ball, were returning home in a third-class carriage. Somewhere between Harfield and Wynberg stations a robber pushed a gun against Ball’s head, demanding money and his personal belongings.
Van Minnen, who was buried last week, came to Ball’s rescue, but the gunman’s accomplice stabbed him five times in the neck and body.
The fatal attacks came in the wake of repeated calls by the parliamentary portfolio committee on transport to have railway police reinstated on trains. The South African commuter unit was reduced from 160 to 40 members earlier this year.
Metrorail says it is doing its best to protect its commuters and blames communities, who know the criminals, for failing to come forward and report crimes on trains.
Western Cape MEC for Safety and Security Hennie Bester blamed the attacks on a shortage of police.