While the exact weekly crime stats in both the Laudium and Erasmia areas are unknown, as the local police and CPF refuse to divulge these stats to the community, residents in these areas continue to feel unsafe as they or their relatives face crime each week.
This follows yet another incident of crime in Erasmia, which was reported to the Laudium Sun for stats purposes, so that other residents can be warned of the ongoing crime in the area. Despite many neighbourhoods in Laudium and Erasmia installing security gates on streets, out of fear of being attacked by criminals, criminals are still ‘smuggling’ themselves into these areas and attacking residents or their properties.
In one of the latest incidents of crime in Erasmia, a home was burgled last Sunday, while the family was out for the day, leaving in the morning and only discovering the break-in upon their return home in the evening. Thieves managed to get into the house on Marthinus Street by breaking open the back door leading into the house and leaving the house with a number of valuables stolen after ransacking the house. Surprisingly, neither the police, who claim to patrol the streets, nor the many private security vehicles saw the thieves entering or leaving the area.
Abdulla Lagardien, the owner of the home that was ransacked by thieves told the Laudium Sun, “We were not at home when the break-in occurred. My wife and I were out for the entire day on Sunday. From my understanding, the break-in happened after we left in the morning at around 10am. I firmly believe that the thieves somehow knew that we were not at home. When we returned home at around 6pm, I was shocked to find that our home had been broken into. These thieves stole a lot of our valuable items, including my wife’s jewellery, an iPhone and a Lenovo laptop. Crime in our area has become a very serious concern. Despite the gating system in the area, many criminal activities are still taking place. It’s extremely worrying — crime is getting out of hand. The police need to be more vigilant and take stricter action. If we don’t stand up against crime now, it will become increasingly difficult for people like us to live in this area. Gating helps in certain areas, but Erasmia is large, and there needs to be proper management, including the deployment of security guards on every street.”
Mohammed Sajid, a resident of Marthinus Street, Erasmia, told the Laudiums Sun, “I heard about the break-in on our street and as usual, the criminals get away with it, while ordinary people like us suffer in the end. Crime is really high in our area and if we want to reduce it, we need to start within our own Indian community. There’s too much division among us — we need to unite and put aside the politics driven by the desire for power and money. We must get rid of greed and come together as a community, like we used to in the past in Laudium. That’s the only way we can fight crime. Otherwise, the criminals will continue taking advantage and right now, they’re winning.”
Another Marthinus Street resident, Suresh Naidoo, told the Laudium Sun, “We have invested so much money in the gating system, yet every week we read in the Laudium Sun about some of the many crimes happening in our area. We don’t even know exactly how many incidents of crime are taking place each week in our area. Crime in our area seems unstoppable and our leaders must step up and do something. We are elderly people — we can’t just move to the posh security estate areas like some of the wealthier residents who have left Laudium or Erasmia for nicer places in Centurion. We have to stay here, and for this to be safe and possible, we need greater commitment from both the police and our community leaders.”