The shooting of a Durban taxi boss’s brother left police admitting on Thursday they are no closer to solving a spate of at least 15 drive-by shootings in one suburb that has left 16 people dead and 14 injured over a period of about three years.
Police spokesperson Director Phindile Radebe said: ”There have been no arrests in any of the drive-by shootings because people have not come forward with any information.
”No one has come forward in any of the cases. We continue to request people to come forward with information so that police can make arrests.”
Radebe’s comments follow the latest shooting in which the brother of a well known taxi boss was wounded in a drive-by shooting in Chatsworth on Wednesday evening.
”Investigations are continuing but there is no evidence or fingerprints to make any arrests because these were drive-by shootings,” she said.
Gerald Arumugam (26) brother of taxi boss Duncan Arumugam, was shot at about 6.30pm on Wednesday and treated for gunshot wounds to the chest and arm.
Chatsworth police spokesperson Captain Edmund Singh said police were investigating an attempted murder case. He said that no arrests had been made.
Police found seven R5 rifle cartridges and some 9mm pistol cartridges at the scene.
It was not the first time that members of the Arumugam family had been targeted in a drive-by shooting.
The 15 incidents that the South African Press Association (Sapa) are aware of date back to an October 2005 shooting when five-year old Dredin-Lee, son of Arumugam’s brother, Duncan, lost his life. A visitor, Deon Govender, was caught in the crossfire and wounded as he discussed selling Duncan some amplifiers for his taxis.
Duncan’s wife Leanne and a three-year-old niece were also wounded in the drive-by attack.
The Independent on Saturday reported in November 2007 that there had been 17 drive-by shootings and eight drug related killings in less than a year.
However, Sapa could not verify all the incidents in that report, but was aware of at least five drive-by shootings since November 2007.
Radebe said: ”I cannot give a figure on how many drive-by shootings there were in Chatsworth, but it was much less than 22. A task team was established with the Organised Crime Unit to deal with drive-by shootings.”
The Arumugam brothers were due to meet with Bellair police on Thursday to hand over more information about a shooting in Durban’s Hillary suburb on February 19, in which Leanne was wounded for a second time.
Her cousin Donovan Pillay was killed as the vehicle they were in pulled up at a stop street and was peppered with gunfire. Police later recovered 24 spent cartridges.
‘Cannot be coincidental’
Chatsworth African National Congress councillor Visvin Reddy said: ”It simply cannot be coincidental that over 15 people are killed in drive-by shootings in Chatsworth over a period of three years and that none of the suspects involved in these murders have been brought to book.
”Clearly someone is not doing their job or someone is turning a blind eye. These incidents have reached epidemic proportions,” he said.
”I have noted in a similar incident in Hillary [suburb] an arrest was made by [Bellair] police, but not a single [arrest] has been made in all the killings in Chatsworth.
”This points fingers at the Chatsworth SAPS. Are they dragging their feet or involved in underground activities as many people suspect?” he said.
The accusation levelled at police is not the first in what is believed to be a taxi war combined with a fight for control over the lucrative ”sugars” — a mixture of rat poison Rattex and heroin — drug trade.
The Hillary drive-by shooting was the only one that has not been handed over to the organised crime unit.
In April 2006, the Independent on Saturday quoted the Chatsworth chief prosecutor Sureka Maharaj as saying: ”There is a lot of corruption, including SAPS members who are on the payroll of drug dealers. We have drug users come to court for possession of 50 tablets and they are shocked and say they had more than 500 tablets when they were arrested.”
Chatsworth community policing forum chairperson Logan Chetty said: ”Most of these cases are handled by the organised crime unit. We are in the dark. I think someone has to answer for these killings and someone has to answer where these dockets are going to and who’s handling them.”
Chetty said that he believed police in Chatsworth were not responsible for the lack of success in the investigations.
Asked about these allegations, Radebe said: ”If people feel certain policemen are corrupt they must report those individuals, because we do not condone corruption in the SAPS.”
Gerald Arumugam told Sapa that after the Hillary shooting his family had become victims of an ongoing taxi feud and that he feared his family would be ”finished off in a grudge war between two former friends”.
”Duncan went into the taxi business alone with me and these guys [the former friends] were left out of the business. They used to be friends before that,” he said.
”There was a personal grudge and it escalated over the years. We just want this war to stop because these shootings are senseless.” – Sapa