Chatsworth residents say they ”don’t feel safe” any more and are ruled by fear because of the recent wave of robberies and violent crimes in the area. According to the police, Chatsworth has been experiencing an alarming number of robberies in the past three weeks and residents are now fed up.
The Independent’s Daily News website on Thursday March 16 said business was calling for a ”state of emergency” to be declared in the area.
Minesh Maistry, a Minority Front (MF) councillor in the area, told the Mail & Guardian Online that he thinks bringing a military presence into Chatsworth is an ”excellent first move” to reduce crime in the area, and that the MF ”are very seriously calling for this measure”.
The MF is the ruling party in the area and Maistry says it would like the government seriously to review its laws on punishing crime.
”This problem [of crime] will still persist even though we’d bring in external measures. We want the death penalty to be brought back,” he said.
Maistry says the crime in Chatsworth is ”getting seriously out of control” and the MF, along with residents and the police, has set up a body, which is nameless at this stage, to ensure certain measures are being put in place.
Ismail’s Hardware store in Crossmoor was robbed of an estimated R150 000 cash on March 13, according to Naresh Rugbeer, the accounts manager, who was in the store at the time.
He told the M&G Online that more than 100 staff and customers were ”pinned to the ground by armed robbers”, shortly after the store opened.
Rugbeer, who doesn’t live in Chatsworth, said he worries about his family, who do live there. ”I worry that I won’t get a phone call from them one day,” he said.
As an employee in the area, he said: ”We don’t feel safe here at all. We’re even afraid to walk the streets at night. In fact, I’m sitting here, and I’m a bit afraid that someone is going to walk in here right now with a gun.”
Rugbeer said he would support ”visible police presence in Chatsworth” because robberies are becoming ”frequent”. Ithala Bank in unit 9 was also robbed in March, said Rugbeer. ”Almost every second day you hear about something.”
He also talked about African National Congress councillor Visvin Reddy, whose brother was shot and killed for ”no reason”.
Chatsworth, a predominantly Indian residential area, was created in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Indians who were removed from their houses during apartheid under the Group Areas Act were dumped in the area, and many living in Chatsworth still suffer extreme poverty as a consequence.
Captain Edmund Singh, from the Chatsworth police station, said the police in the area are adequate and ”very aware of crime in our hot spots”.
Of the criminals in Chatsworth, Singh said: ”We are definitely there in the hot spots [and] as much as we are watching crime, the crime is watching us as well.”
When asked if crime in the area is as bad as media coverage in KwaZulu-Natal makes it out to be, Singh answered: ”No, definitely not. Chatsworth is not a dangerous area. Chatsworth is one of the good areas. I think it’s a misconception within the public.”
However, he said he would like to see a ”decrease in violent and priority crime” in the area.
”We cannot compare apples to oranges. Each crime in each area is different,” he said when the M&G Online asked him if the crime in Chatsworth is as bad as anywhere else.
Singh disagreed with Reddy’s comments in the Daily News. Reddy claimed that Chatsworth had become a disaster area where ”the police themselves are saying that they are scared”.
”I don’t feel people must speak for the police. It’s our job, and if we’re scared then the population would be in trouble,” said Singh.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Director Bala Naidoo told the M&G Online that police had been seeing mostly robberies (residential and business) in the past three weeks. He said police in the area have been summoned and will be ”discussing these issues on Wednesday”.
”In all probability, we are going to try beef up the resources there to try and see if we can curb this problem,” said Naidoo. He added that it’s ”difficult” to say exactly what the police will do in order to ”beef up” their resources in the area because he doesn’t know which specific area in Chatsworth has a problem.
”We need to establish exactly which part of Chatsworth is affected right now. Chatsworth hasn’t been a problem [in the past, but] we need to get a greater picture of what’s happening there,” he said.
Naidoo warned that no person should take the law into their own hands, and if they do they should ”be prepared to face the consequences of their actions”.
He feels that the media are creating a higher level of crime awareness among the people in Chatsworth, adding: ”We haven’t seen any media reports that have created a panic in Chatsworth.”
Sabitha Govender (58), a retired insurance clerk and mother of two, said the ”police must be around and make the place safer”. She told the M&G Online that armed men walked up the pathway of her home for the first time in the 40-odd years that she has lived there, on March 14 at 2am.
She said the men were targeting her neighbour’s outbuilding, which didn’t have any security and was occupied by a female.
”She screamed and that disturbed them. They fired a few shots, [but] didn’t break in or anything. Then they ran away and the police couldn’t find them.” she said. She blames apartheid for people wanting to ”kill and steal” in Chatsworth because, she says, the criminals are not educated and don’t care about the consequences of their actions.
”We feel a bit insecure, but there’s nothing we can do. Hardened criminals are not worried and they don’t have a conscience,” she said.
However, she admits that compared with other areas, Chatsworth is ”not as bad”, but is adamant that it’s not as safe as it once was. ”I used to walk in the morning and now I don’t even walk because I’m so scared. We are the people who are suffering because we are living in Chatsworth. We are so careful.”
According to the Crime Information Analysis Centre at the South African Police Service, the there were 607 incidents of ”robbery with aggravating circumstances” in Chatsworth between April 2004 and March 2005.
Attempted murder dropped from 174 to 130 reported cases between 2004 and 2003, and in 2004/05, 135 cases of commercial crime, 227 shoplifting incidents and 386 stolen cars and motorcycles were recorded in the report.
Mahesh Ratanjee, the owner of Manilal Ratanjee and Company — a prayer shop — told the M&G Online that ”crime in the area has tripled overnight”.
When he first opened his business in Chatsworth nine years ago, there was a ”low level of crime”, and people would walk around freely with their ”fancy jewellery”, he said.
”We hardly heard of much crime [back then]. But instead of pickpocketing, now they come with a knife or a gun and they frighten the living daylights out of you,” said Ratanjee.
Last year, the jewellery store next door to Ratanjee’s business was robbed and the armed robbers made no attempt to hide their weapons. They walked out ”with guns in their hands, and no one realised that they [the jewelry store] were being robbed”, he said.
He added that whenever he is tipped off about a possible robbery near his store, he notifies his neighbours and doesn’t hesitate to close his store. ”We don’t want to stand here and be in the firing line” when the robbers come, he added.
”I don’t feel safe any more. What we’ve done in the store is we’ve employed a full-time security guard now, but that still does not give us peace of mind,” said Ratanjee.
He feels that police should conduct regular raids and roadblocks to monitor crime in the area by checking if people have illegal firearms in their possession.